JERRY CITY – Most know about the tradition Elmwood’s softball program has built over the last 15 years.

The Royals have won 301 games since Matt Hoiles took over.
And with eight letter winners back from last year’s Northern Buckeye Conference championship team,
Elmwood expects nothing less than to repeat.
"It’s a relief knowing that we have a lot of experienced girls here. They know what to expect and
they know what they have to do," said center fielder Madison Arnold, who batted .410 last season
with 30 RBI.
Elmwood also returns junior starting pitcher Miranda Benschoter. Benschoter was 21-4 with a 1.81 ERA and
181 strikeouts last season. She has developed immensely since her freshman year, and Hoiles expects her
to be one of if not the top pitcher in the conference this year.
"I’ve seen a different Miranda Benschoter this year," Hoiles said. "She is now older and
her speed has increased and her movement on the ball has increased. That’s come with strength, but I
also think she understands now. … She’s come back this year with a lot of knowledge of what hurt her the
previous two years and she’s worked on it."
The Royals will be led by three returning seniors in Arnold, Chelsie Schmitz and Brandie Vargas. Also
back from the squad that was 22-7 overall are two of the NBC’s top hitters in juniors Rebecca Harvey and
Olivia Myers. Harvey hit .505 last year with 13 doubles, three home runs and 37 RBI. Myers hit .414 with
14 extra-base hits and 21 RBI.
But with all of the talent back, the Royals know it will still take more to make a deep tournament run.

"We need to work harder than we did in the last couple of years," Harvey said. "We have a
lot of potential and I think that we can do better than we have in the past and go far.
"This group kind of feeds back to a lot of the groups that I had from 2005-08 where they come to
work," Hoiles said. "They could care less about stats. They could care less about how they
win. They care more about that they’ll win. And I haven’t had that for a while."
Harvey and Arnold agreed the team chemistry will also play a big factor in determining the success of the
season.
Both said this year’s team is already closer than those of past years.
"We’re really close this year and we’ll just continue to have each other’s backs, and that’s what
you have to have on the field," Arnold said.
Hoiles knows duplicating the success from last year and previous years is not easy. He challenges his
seniors every year to leave the program better than what they found it. And Hoiles thinks this year’s
group should do that.
"They’ll be hungrier than what the team I had last year was," he said. "We’ve always used
the mantra ‘Win the day.’ You win every day. We don’t set goals of winning the league. We don’t set
goals of winning the state. We set a goal to win the day.
"This year’s team has more drive to win every game and they see they’re not going to be handed it,
they’re going to take it," Hoiles added. "We don’t want to be handed anything. We don’t want
to be given anything. We want to out right take it from people."