The Shawnee High School girls softball team is off to its best start since 2014, a year after finishing one win shy of a state berth in Division V.
The Braves are 18-1 this season with wins over defending D-VI state champion Tri-Village (9-3), D-VII regional finalist Southeastern (11-2) and D-III state semifinalist Western Brown (14-3).
Last week, the Braves one-upped the 2014 team that started 18-0. The 2026 Braves ranked No. 1 in the Ohio High School State Softball Coaches Poll for the first time in school history. They tied for first with Liberty Union and Wheelersburg.
“I would have never dreamed (being No. 1), said senior Ava George. “Nobody really expected us to be much this year. So I’m really glad that we can prove everybody wrong. It’s really exciting. I love all the girls so much, and I love playing with them. And this is by far my favorite year playing for Shawnee.”
Their lone loss came at the hands of Clark County rival Kenton Ridge, the unbeaten defending D-IV state champ who has won 51 consecutive games.
They’ll play Central Buckeye Conference Mad River Division rival North Union (14-5), who is tied with Shawnee atop the division at 9-1, on Monday. The Wildcats lost to Kenton Ridge 24-5 on Friday, April 24.
The Braves’ focus, said coach Gary Baugh, has been keeping the high standards left by a senior class that were a part of 83 wins over the last four seasons. A year ago, they won the Central Buckeye Conference Mad River Division title and a D-V district championship before falling to Miami East in a regional final game.
“The success really is down to a few things,” Baugh said. “We lost (pitcher Aleeseah Trimmer and shortstop Maura Simpson) last year, but that didn’t change how we were looking at it, from leadership standards to culture and expectations that they helped build for us. That was kind of the foundation that we’re building off of and the returning girls, even the younger ones, have stepped into roles they normally may not see for another season or so. They stepped into bigger roles, and have had a lot of confidence with that, and had no hesitation doing so and doing what we asked them to do. We had a lot of good player development in the offseason … and it’s paying dividends.”
A year ago, Trimmer led the CBC with 225 strikeouts and a 0.40 earned run average and finished second in wins with 22.
This season, the Braves have used three different starting pitchers in senior lefty Kelty Hannan and sophomore righthanders Byanca Dubie and Brooklyn Dixon, who all have different pitching styles, Baugh said.
“Everybody knew what to kind of expect us from last year, so we had to kind of reinvent what we wanted to be this year with having the three different pitchers, three different styles, three different, you know, mechanics that are involved in speed and off-speed,” he said. “It’s just a really nice mix of three very comparable pitchers that can go out there at any point when their number is called and get the job done.”
Dubie is 10-1 with a 2.03 earned run average and Hannan is 7-0 with a 3.87 ERA. Dubie leads the team with 75 strikeouts in 65.1 innings pitched.
Athlete of the Week: Byanca Dubie, Shawnee High School
“They feed off of one another,” Baugh said. “It’s a consistency of communication between them. Each one of them is their biggest cheerleader when they are in there, and if they’re not, they’re ready to go when their number is called. So that’s been a great blessing to have.”
At the plate, the Braves have one of the top offenses in the area. They’ve scored a league-best 207 runs this season. Dubie leads the team with a .559 batting average and 29 RBIs.
With 10 returners who saw varsity action last season, the Braves have fostered a family culture of playing for one another, Baugh said.
“They have a no-quit attitude,” Baugh said. “They’ve faced a lot of good teams and they’ve come out on top. They believe every game, you know, that they’re going to come out better than going in. So it’s been nice.”
That’s shown over the last two weeks. On Monday, the Braves trailed Benjamin Logan 4-1, but scored six runs in the fourth and fifth innings to grab a 7-4 victory. On April 16, they scored six runs in the bottom of the seventh inning – thanks to Dubie’s three-run walkoff home run – to beat D-III third-ranked Western Brown 13-11. The previous day, after giving up a seven-run lead, the Braves scored eight runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to beat Northwestern 21-13.
After last season’s heartbreak, the Braves did some soul searching in the offseason on how they wanted this season to go, Baugh said. The “driving force,” Baugh said, was working to get to the state final four.
“I’d be probably remiss if I didn’t say we had a little bit of a chip on our shoulder with, you know, feeling like we could have went farther, but we just didn’t make it. It’s not that we have to prove anything to anybody, but we use that as the motivation,” he said. “They’ve come together. They believe in one another. It’s such a team effort with the returners that we have elevating their game, they’ve just gotten better. The newcomers that we have that are on the team now have really stepped into the roles that they’ve accepted, and they’ve been, they’ve been doing really well in their own right.