Dawson CC Softball Putting the Program on the Map

Come Wednesday afternoon, Glendive will be the site of the District H Softball Championship. Dawson Community College will play host to Kirkwood Community College, out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a best of three series. On the line is a trip to Mississippi for the Division II National Championships. The 2019 season has been historic for the Dawson Community College softball squad. The buccaneers enter Wednesday’s double-header with a 42-3 record. While most teams typically name a couple of players to be team captains, that is not the case for Dawson. All six sophomores have the title and it seems to be working well for the buccaneers. Head Coach Jim LeProwse, who was just named Coach of the Year, said, “The six of them stepped up and really guided the freshmen in the right direction. There’s four of them that start all the time, so we are pretty freshmen heavy for the most part. Both of our pitchers that threw most of the year are freshmen, so it’s pretty incredible what our sophomore group has done with their leadership.” Coach LeProwse and his team have accomplished back-to-back conference championships, as well as back-to-back regional championships. There are multiple reasons for the team’s success. Two of them have to do with early mornings and versatility. “You can pull people from the bench and they have just has much power as anyone in the lineup. Our pitchers do really good obviously, I don’t get many balls hit to me in centerfield, so they must be doing their job,” explained Trinity Anderson, a sophomore outfielder for the buccaneers. Coach LeProwse added, “They go at 5:30 in the morning and workout for about an hour and a half before school starts. All of them really gave it all they had in the off-season. It makes a big, big difference. They all practice. They’re never late for practice, none of them.” The huge success the program has had, as well as the support the town of Glendive has given the team, has helped put Dawson Community College Softball on the map for college softball. “We’re really small. We only have like 300 kids at our school and so it’s really cool,” said freshman pitcher, Shelby Martin. “And being home, it’s going to give us so much more confidence and having our community around us, it’s going to be great.” Coach LeProwse explained, “The rankings came out yesterday and we are the #18 team in the nation right now which is pretty incredible. We’ve never been ranked since we’ve been Division II so I’m excited about that too.” The buccaneers face off against the Kirkwood Eagles for a double-header on Wednesday. The first game is scheduled for 2:00 and the second game is scheduled for 4:00. If the teams split the games, they will face off again on Thursday at noon.