Trevians 18U shines till the end

Local softball’s spring success spilled right into the summer.

Featuring members of New Trier‘s and Loyola‘s high school teams, both of which had big spring seasons, Trevians Fastpitch’s 18U team completed its best season in recent memory, according to head coach Al Dolinko.

With the team’s top-six finish at the Premier Girls Fastpitch Midwest Championships, Dolinko said the Trevians earned their best finish in at least 10 years — and likely longer.

“Also this is the most successful group of 18s we’ve had,” he said. “They won more games than any other, played incredibly good defense, had a high team batting average and the most gratifying part of it is that we are doing it with, for the most part, local kids who are competing against more regional teams.”

He said the program had been building for this moment.

“It took a long time and a lot of effort to build it back to where we can go to an event like this and stand toe to toe with really high-level teams and not only compete but beat them,” Dolinko said.

Trevians 18U’s roster features: New Trier’s Lyla Andelin, Trinity Andelin, Harper Glinn, Kennedy Glinn, Ilana Styles and Addy Varca; Loyola’s JuJu Miller; Evanston’s Rosie Witt and Delila Liston; Lane Tech’s Amelia Volkens; Stevenson’s Addie Pak; Elkhart Christian’s Brianna Ehninger; and Durand’s Delaney Wirtjes.

Dolinko coaches the team along with his daughter, Dana Dolinko, a former New Trier softball standout and the club’s executive director, and Ellie Manderfeld, the head softball coach at Trinity Christian College.

Following a successful regular season, Trevians 18U competed with 35 other teams from across the Midwest in the double-elimination PGF Midwest Championships July 28-30 in Peoria.

Trevians won their opener before falling in a second game and landing in the backdraw. There, they won four consecutive games, including three straight on July 30.

They were one of just six teams remaining when they fell to Catalyst National out of Minnesota to end their tournament.

During the run, the Trevians had two walk-off victories. Kennedy Glinn delivered the game-winner against Mission 18U National in the Trevians’ fifth win, and two games earlier, Witt’s RBI single gave the Trevians a win against Heartland Havoc.

The offense heroics were impressive, but Dolinko gave plenty of credit to his team’s defense and pitching for the successful tournament and season.

“We have played very good defense this entire cycle,” he said. “We are an attention-to-detail team. We minimize our mistakes, and we have a very good baserunning team.

“The difference when we won consecutive games was we were hitting the ball more consistently. … We had table-setters at the top and the middle of the order did their jobs to get them in.”

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