Staff file photo / Dan Hiner Lakeview pitcher Isabella Isenberg delivers during the sixth inning of a Division IV regional final against Perry on May 31 in Dalton.

Last year, Lakeview did what no other Bulldogs softball team did before when it won its first regional championship and appeared in the state semifinals.

That was, more or less, part of the plan for Dave Kelm’s team after previously failing to make it past the district title game. But this year, on the heels of a 22-5 season and a trip to Akron, Kelm and Lakeview hope to stick around for a while.

“I started a thing where our goal is to really go out there and push hard at practices, push hard at the beginning of the season and hard enough that we know what we need to work on. That’s never changed,” Kelm said. “Last year, I did say, ‘Hey, we need to appear in regionals. That’s a big drive for us. We’ve been stuck in that district final game for a couple of years, and let’s really push on getting over that.’ This year, I told the team, like, ‘Hey, let’s make sure that we maintain that we are a regional contender for a state bid.’ And that’s what we got to be thinking about every year from here on out. … This is our goal for our program – year after year in the regional games and looking at being a state contender every year.”

That will be easier said than done, especially after the departures of key Class of 2025 graduates such as Ava Bacon, Kennedy Bartlett and Hallie Capan. However, the Bulldogs are well underway in replacing the trio.

Kelm said junior Paige Schwartz will start at first base, succeeding Bartlett, after trying out four or five players at the position. Additionally, sophomore Jianna Shaker will get some time in the circle following a lost freshman year due to injury.

The Bulldogs will also rely, to varying degrees, on the likes of Linnea Kovac, Annaliese Dejulio, Ella Collins, Carley Brainard, Rylee Barnot, Abby Waldo and Talor Ash. But the biggest differentiators are expected to be the senior trio of Kalyssa Werner, Mackenzie Stowe and Isabella Isenberg.

Kelm said that Stowe, a Kent State commit, is not likely to “give up very many innings” as the team’s starting catcher, but he will also work in backup Sienna Terry to prepare the Lakeview program for the subsequent seasons without Stowe behind the plate.

“Huge teammates, amazing people, incredible athletes in the sport,” Kelm said of Stowe, Isenberg and Werner. “They are, hands down, going to be driving this team, as you expect your seniors to do, and they’re definitely going to be, I assume, in a lot of media headlines and stuff through the season, all coming off of incredible offensive outings last year.”

Stowe led the Bulldogs with 11 home runs and 53 RBI, and she had a .530 batting average, the third-highest on the team. Werner batted .553 while scoring a team-high 49 runs and driving in 24 runs. Isenberg, the team’s returning pitcher, went 10-5 and sported a 4.01 ERA in the circle, while hitting four home runs and driving in 27 runs at the plate.

Offense will again be a major point of focus, Kelm said.

“I kind of coach towards, we got to score more runs than the other team,” Kelm said. “We’re definitely pretty good at offense. We tend to be able to produce runs. What I like about this group of girls is we’ve got a [large] amount of hitting styles, so we’re going to be able to possibly get players into certain pitching situations, knowing what the other girls are throwing at us. And that might warrant our lineup a little bit more than just, ‘Hey, this is what the stat sheet says right now.’ Let’s look at what the team’s throwing at us so that we can match up better.”

Defense was a little slower to come along last year, as the Bulldogs allowed five or more runs in seven of their first eight games to start the 2025 season.

If that happens again, it’s possible Lakeview could, for the second year in a row, start off with a loss against Boardman. Like the ‘Dogs, the Spartans made a trip to Akron last June and lost in the state semifinals.

After their season-opening meeting last March, neither Kelm nor Boardman head coach Fred Mootz wanted to potentially jinx their respective years by changing things up in 2026.

“We actually started the season last year against each other, and because of that, we were able to have the longest season in the area, because we both wound up going to state. So this is just me and Mr. Mootz saying, ‘Hey, seems like a tradition if we do it this year.’ So we’re going to go ahead and try to get that same thing going again and again,” Kelm said. “We want to test ourselves early, find out what we need to work on. And I’m sure Coach Mootz over there is thinking the same thing. Let’s go ahead and let’s go out right now and then figure out what we got to get better at so that we’re playing the best softball in May and June.”

Lakeview is set to play at Boardman at 11 a.m. today before facing Gilmour Academy in the second half of its doubleheader.