Gladwin senior Dayna Fennell spent an epic spring chasing the state record for home runs, and got there in the final tournament of the regular season when she clubbed one in each of three games the Flying G’s played at Ogemaw Heights.
That gave her a total of 19, good for a tie with Parchment’s Kassidy Butler, who set the standard last year.
And then, along came Miss Softball.
Farmington Hills Mercy rolled to a state championship, led by Abby Krzywiecki who finished the year with 20 bombs and was voted Miss Softball for her efforts.
“It would have been nice if Dayna had been able to hold onto it long enough for them to update the record on the MHSAA website,” said Gladwin coach Jill Keefer, “but she will still be on there for second place and she hit 32 in her career, which puts her in the top 10 on that list as well.”
The numbers could have been even bigger.
“She hit the fence another five times, minimum, and some of those were at 225 (feet),” Keefer said. “If she had hit those at our field, she would have had quite a few more.”
Fennell also drove in 60 runs and holds every school record for power hitting.
She didn’t get many opportunities in the state tournament, as the Flying G’s gave up five runs in the first inning of their district debut and dropped out with a 6-5 loss to Ogemaw Heights.
“We had that one bad inning and we couldn’t recover,” Keefer said. “We kept fighting and we had a runner on third in the seventh, but we couldn’t bring her home.”
Gladwin finished with a record of 29-10, the best in school history.
Fennell will continue her career next season at Delta College.