Staff file photo / Preston Byers Lakeview’s Ava Bacon delivers a pitch during a game against Canfield on April 19, at McCune Park in Canfield.

For each of the last two seasons, the Lakeview softball team has come up short in the district final against area powerhouse Champion.

In 2023, the Bulldogs fell 2-0 to the Golden Flashes, and in 2024, Lakeview lost 4-0.

Head coach Dave Kelm is hopeful that 2025 will be different.

“They are more and more hungry this year,” Kelm said. “I think the year before, they thought we just surprised everyone. Last year, they felt like they deserved to be there and we should have won that one. This year, that motivation has just turned into, ‘Hey, this is our year. We need to go take it.’ I’m excited for how they’re viewing it. They don’t want to end as district runners-up three years in a row. They want to get a little bit farther this year.”

The Bulldogs are well-equipped to do so, considering only two seniors – Izzy Haines and Makenna Werner – graduated in the spring.

Among the returning contributors are seniors Hallie Capan, Kennedy Bartlett and Ava Bacon, as well as juniors Mackenzie Stowe and Kalyssa Werner.

Bacon, in particular, remains one of the Bulldogs’ go-to pitchers, along with junior Isabella Isenberg. The pair pitched nearly 140 innings combined last season, during which Lakeview went 18-6.

Kelm also expects some former utility players and underclassmen to step into expanded roles this year.

“I’m looking at Ella Collins and Annaliese DeJulio. They were contributors last year out of our dugout — coming in, playing some defensive innings for us, getting a few at-bats in,” Kelm said. “I feel like they’re going to step up big this year. And then this freshman class, we’ll see exactly how it goes, but I really feel like this freshman class is going to [have] some contributors coming through.”

The abundance of talent, Kelm said, has made his job a little more difficult. The third-year coach said he has many “options” in regards to his team’s lineup, which is a positive development even if it can be tough on the head decision-maker.

Overall, the job has, in some ways, gotten easier for Kelm, who has overseen back-to-back 18-win seasons as the Bulldogs’ head coach.

“One of the things that I know the first year I was not ready for was, to be honest, all the media that goes around it. It’s great, and it’s for the kids and it’s a huge promotion, but that kind of hit me,” Kelm said. “The schedule was tough. Now, the schedule and things like that are getting easier, but as the program’s becoming more and more what I envisioned it, trying to find what is the next level, what is that next gear, that’s where that is getting a bit tougher. It’s the challenge that you want to have.”

As always, Lakeview will have plenty of challenges in the Northeast 8 Conference.

Hubbard, Poland and South Range, the latter of which reached the state semifinals and finals in 2023 and 2024, respectively, pose the Bulldogs’ greatest obstacles, although Lakeview swept both Hubbard and Poland, in addition to handing the Raiders one of their four losses last season to earn a share of the NE8 championship.

“The conference title is huge, the NE8,” Kelm said. “We got South Range opening up [the conference schedule] this year. Last year, that’s who we finished with, and it’s going to be some important games at the beginning. So we want to hit the field at a high level, improve every week, find ways to get better, and then be playing our best softball when the tournament starts, so we can hopefully take the conference and play for the state title.”

The Bulldogs begin their season Saturday morning at Boardman; they will play a doubleheader against the Spartans and Willoughby South starting at 10 a.m. Lakeview will then host South Range on Tuesday in its home and conference opener.