Tiecyn Hertz is one of four seniors for Minot North this season. As a junior, she batted .381 with 29 RBIs and 29 runs scored. In the circle, she led the Sentinels with five wins. Minot North Softball

In 2024, the Minot North softball team took the field for the first time as a varsity program young and inexperienced with just two juniors and 10 underclassmen on the roster.

Fast forward two years later and the Sentinels have grown into a squad filled with valuable experience and veteran leadership with a roster that now boasts four seniors and five juniors.

The Sentinels return nearly their entire roster from last year’s team that finished the season 13-19 overall and 7-11 in conference play. They placed seventh in the WDA regular season standings and won a play-in game against Turtle Mountain to advance to the WDA Tournament for the first time.

“This year we have a lot of talented athletes and we’re just ready to take on whoever is there for us,” Minot North senior Kate Coleman said. “We started this program and we weren’t really sure what it would consist of, but we’ve grown a lot from the start and we’re ready for this season.”

Year 2 marked an eight-win improvement from their inaugural season in 2024, where Minot North compiled a record of 5-23-1, going 4-16 in the WDA and losing to Bismarck Century in a WDA Tournament play-in game as the ninth seed. With two years of varsity experience under their belt, the Sentinels expect to not only make the WDA Tournament, but put themselves in a position to play for a spot in the state tournament by winning a postseason contest.

“Being our third year as a program and these girls having a lot of experience now, we’re trying to raise the bar to give us a chance to play in that last day of the regional tournament to give us a chance to get to state is kind of our ultimate goal,” Minot North coach Roger Coleman said. “We haven’t won a game in the region tournament for two years, so that’s what we’ve talked about is winning a game and getting to the third day of the regional tournament.”

While the Sentinels lost only one senior, that player was WDA Senior Athlete of the Year Cadey Shipman, who was also named all-state and all-WDA. She led the team in batting average (.477), doubles (15), home runs (13) and runs scored (56). She was second on the team in both hits (42) and RBIs (49).

Minot North was an offensive powerhouse last year, putting up 314 runs and averaging 10.5 runs per game. The Sentinels hit 28 home runs and slugged .601.

“We definitely know how to hit the ball and score a lot of runs,” Kate Coleman said. “If we find that ball, we find a way to drive it. We do a lot of hitting in the cages with the pitching machine, live pitching and hitting off our coaches. A lot of that comes into play on the field even when we can’t get outside and do all of that.”

While Shipman will be sorely missed in the lineup, the Sentinels have plenty of hitters up and down the order. Aven Kelly is one of the four seniors on this year’s roster. She is the top returning hitter after batting .471 with 11 doubles, six triples, nine home runs, 59 RBIs and 42 runs scored. She led the team with 48 total hits. Junior Eliese McCann also hit above .400, batting .427 with a team-best 15 doubles to go along with four triples, three home runs, 30 RBIs and 18 runs scored. Seniors Tiecyn Hertz, Kate Coleman and Kinzy Welstad all collected more than 35 hits, combining for 23 doubles, eight triples, a home run, 64 RBIs and 118 runs scored. Juniors Mya Bagwell and Cole Kotaska also batted above .300 and drove in a combined 38 runs.

“We’re losing our leading hitter, but some of these younger girls now will be able to add some extra base hits that they didn’t last year, but just hitting at a higher percentage is something we take a lot of pride in and we like to score,” Roger Coleman said. “The big difference is we need to elevate our pitching a little bit and make it a little tougher to score against us. We don’t mind the shootout games, but we’d rather be on the other side of those.”

The Sentinels could score runs, but they could also concede them. They surrendered 283 runs over 181 innings. Opponents scored 10+ runs in 17 games last season.

The pitching staff will look the same as it did last year, with Welstad, Kelly and Hertz shouldering most of the load in the circle. The trio pitched all but 9.2 innings last season. Kotaska pitched those innings. Welstad had a team-best 6.65 ERA, allowing 70 earned runs over 73.2 innings, striking out 40. Kelly led the staff in strikeouts with 43 over 32 innings. Hertz received the most starts with 12 and finished with the most wins (5). She tossed 65.2 innings, allowing 68 earned runs while striking out 35.

“We have to continue to get better throughout the season and limit mistakes,” Roger Coleman said. “We can score, but we also gave up a lot of runs, so we either need to increase our output or decrease what we’re giving up. Hopefully we can be somewhere in the middle defensively and score at a high rate like we did last year.”

The Sentinels got off to a strong start last season, winning five of their first six. In the middle part of the year, they recorded wins against the likes of Mandan and Jamestown, but ended the season losing 11 of their final 13 games.

“Competitiveness is the biggest thing,” Roger Coleman said. “In the first year, we probably won the games we were supposed to win and maybe weren’t at the level to compete with some of the better teams, but last year, we were able to keep that competitive nature up and split with some of the better teams in the WDA. We want to continue to compete against all the teams across the state.”

While the goal this year is to win a game at the WDA Tournament and play the final day for a chance to be one of the four West Region representatives at the state tournament, earning that first trip would be the perfect way for Kate Coleman to end her Sentinel career, especially with it being on their home diamond here in Minot.

“It would be a very good look for us,” Kate Coleman said. “Since we are pretty young as a team – last year we only had one senior – to make it there would be incredible and we’d be so happy.”

The Sentinels accomplished their goal in Year 1 of going out and competing. They accomplished their goal in Year 2 of advancing to the WDA Tournament. The journey to accomplish their goal in Year 3 begins on Tuesday, March 31, against Grand Forks Red River at 8:15 p.m. at the MSU Bubble.