Hancock County players aplenty on SCAI honor teams

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Eastern Hancock’s Sammie Bolding , left, and Brooklyn Willis celebrate Bolding’s home run against New Palestine on Monday, March 21, 2022. The game ended in a tie.

Tom Russo | The Daily Reporter

HANCOCK COUNTY – When the Softball Coaches Association of Indiana handed out awards, it spent a good deal of time in Hancock County.

From all-state honors, all-star selections and all-academic team choices, nine area prep softball players were among the honorees.

The association splits its all-state teams into classifications.

Coming off a season that saw the team reach the Class 2A semi-state round, Eastern Hancock sophomore Sammie Bolding was named first team to the Class 1A/Class 2A all-state squad.

Bolding hit .579 in 27 games with 17 home runs and 40 RBI. She also scored 47 runs and stole 33 bases. Bolding set the single-season school record in home runs and is already the program’s career leader with 31.

Teammate and classmate Brooklyn Willis was named second team all-state. Willis had very impressive numbers, too. She hit .519 with 10 homers and 39 RBI. She scored 42 runs, had nine doubles and 27 stolen bases.

Eastern Hancock senior Caroline Stapleton was another second-team choice.

Stapleton, who came into the season already the program’s all-time leader in triples, hit .543 with 47 runs scored and 38 stolen bases. She added three more triples to her three-season total of 24. She is headed to the University of Southern Indiana, in Evansville. The school is transitioning to NCAA Division I after being a Division II school.

Eastern Hancock finished 21-5-1 on the year.

“Very well-deserved,” Eastern Hancock coach Terry Stephens said of his all-staters. “The thing about those girls, they work harder before the season starts. When they come to me they are prepared and ready to go. When you play travel softball it’s like you never stop. You don’t miss a beat. They come in and you can tell they have put the time in outside the season.”

New Palestine junior Aglaia Rudd and sophomore Allie Blum were named to the SCAI Class 3A/Class 4A all-state second team.

Rudd hit .488 with 12 doubles, six home runs and 41 RBI. Amazingly, in 90 plate appearances, she did not strikeout.

Blum hit .371 with nine home runs and 29 RBI. She had seven doubles and 11 stolen bases.

The Dragons were 23-4-1 this season. The one tie was a 5-5, eight-inning deadlock to open the year at Eastern Hancock.

Greenfield-Central senior Megan Wineinger was chosen to the third team. Headed to the University of Indianapolis next season, Wineinger finished her career with the Cougars by hitting .506 with three doubles, 16 RBI and 36 runs scored. She stole a G-C high nine bases.

Wineinger was also selected to play in the SCAI North/South All-Star Game to be played June 25 at Indiana University.

Greenfield-Central finished the season 15-8.

Along with all-state and all-star selections, New Palestine’s Alaina Miller, who will play at the University of Illinois, and Alexa Holman, committed to IUPUI, were named to the SCAI academic all-state team. New Palestine’s Grace Paquette was honorable mention.

All three Dragons were seniors and key contributors on the field, too. Holman had 32 at-bats in 20 games and hit .500 with three home runs and 15 RBI. Miller hit .337 with 10 doubles and 14 RBI. Paquette batted .290 with four doubles, three home runs and 16 knocked in.

Eliminated in the sectional round by eventual state champion Roncalli, the Dragons were ranked No. 4 in the final Class 4A poll.