Thunder Softball Gets A Jump On 2012 With Six Recruits

May 20

Wes Vork-NSO

For Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College women’s softball coach Kerry Rodd this is the busiest time of year. Rodd has been working hard on the recruiting circuit in hopes of landing local players who will join the Thunder this season.

“Between myself and our assistant coaches we’ve been at tons of games since our season ended,” mentioned Rodd earlier this week. “This year there are not a lot of seniors so it is vital to get out and beat the bushes.”

So far the work by Rodd, and assistant coach Steve Jezierski, has begun to pay off in a big way.

“We’ve gotten six commitments so far,” Rodd explained. “We are not done by any means and we have a lot of good players out there who are still on the bubble.”

Ironically the first player to commit to Rodd this season shares the same last name as his niece made an early commitment back in March.

“Denise (Rodd) confirmed back in February that she is coming here and that was important because you always need pitchers,” Rodd said. “We also have Courtney Kruse coming in from McGregor and she throws, plus we have a couple of pitchers coming back from last year’s team.”

Kruse will be an important part of the team next season because of her ability to play multiple positions, but she isn’t the only player capable of being a threat at more than one position. The Thunder are also bringing in an extremely talented Mandi Maruca of Duluth East who can play anywhere on the field and could even act as a back-up pitcher.

“Mandi is talented, but by no means is she the only one in this group,” stated Rodd. “I think this is an extremely athletic group and we are very happy so far.”

The Thunder are also excited about the power they add to the team with Jenna Shanda of Barnum and Dayna Elmer of Cromwell. Shanda is a strong hitting and fielding first baseman and Elmer is a catcher with what Rodd says is enormous untapped potential.

The latest Thunder recruit made a verbal commitment to Rodd on Thursday night when Kari Palmi, an outfielder from Esko, confirmed her intentions of playing at FDLTCC next season.

“We have had some great players from Esko and we are excited to keep that tradition with the Eskomo program alive,” suggested Rodd. “Brad Emanuel has done a great job with that program through the years so we always know that players coming from Esko will be ahead of the game fundamentally and knowledge-wise and we think this is no exception with Palmi.”

The Thunder finished this past season with a 14-14 record and lose five players to graduation including four starters.

“I think we’re at the point in our program now where we’ll finally have a good mix of both first and second year players,” said Rodd. “This coming year will be our fifth year and the first three years we had rosters dominated by either first or second year players and we didn’t have a good balance.”

Comments can be sent to sports@northlandsportsonline.com