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Heading into the 2025 softball season the Charles Henderson Lady Trojans are young but have a number of veteran returners at the same time. 

In year two under head coach Sonny Kirkpatrick, the Lady Trojans are looking to take the next step forward.

“Workouts have gone pretty well. It stinks losing a week of practice due to the snow days but the girls at getting it,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’re very young but we do have some experience coming back. We also have a lot of kids that haven’t played at the varsity level that will have to step up, too.” 

Kirkpatrick is looking to his seniors and a solid group of talented sophomores has the backbone of the Lady Trojans.

“Jada Jones and Aderian Greenwood are my seniors coming back and they’ll be leaders,” he said. “We don’t have any juniors but we do have a core group of sophomores that got a lot of experience last year. We expect them to step up and we also know we’ll have a freshman or two that will play and the rest will be seventh and eighth graders. It’s always fun to piece things together heading into a season and then get to see where we come out at the end of it.”

Jones, who has signed a scholarship to play college softball at Xavier University of Louisiana, earned All-Messenger honors last season and was the CHHS Team MVP after boasting a .360 batting average with seven doubles, three triples, a home run, 17 RBIs, 15 stolen bases and 44 runs. She also held a .946 fielding percentage with 51 putouts, two assists and one double play.

“Jada is our centerfielder, we know what we have with her always,” Kirkpatrick said. “She’s someone you never have to worry about.” 

Charles Henderson also returns All-Messenger sophomore utility Calleigh Compton. Compton is heading into her third season as a varsity player. After playing catcher for most of her eighth grade season, Compton played all over the field for the Lady Trojans in 2024. She boasted a team-high .446 batting average with a .527 on-base percentage, 10 doubles, six home runs, seven stolen bases, 36 RBIs and 35 runs. She also earned a .929 fielding percentage with 56 putouts, 49 assists and two double plays on defense. She pitched 36 and 2/3 innings with a 1-0 record as a starter in the circle with 25 strikeouts. Compton will once again be called on to play multiple positions.

“Calleigh will pitch, catch, play shortstop and if we need to throw her in the outfield we can do that, too,” said Kirkpatrick. “She has to be a versatile player for us.” 

The Lady Trojans lose power hitter Molly Garrett, who graduated last season, but Kirkpatrick is still excited about the possibilities this season. 

“We lost a lot of home runs last year with Molly graduating and we also lost some experience that decided to not come back out this season, but the focus is really on defense,” he said. “We still have some pop in the bats, and we need to put the ball in play a lot more. We have a lot of good kids, some middle schoolers, that will have to step up and that will depend on the learning curve there.”

With the younger players, Kirkpatrick said a big key will be how they handle adversity.

“You’re going to get frustrated and make mistakes but how do you respond to that? We have to be able to adjust to those things and move on,” he said. 

The goal for 2025 is just to compete, which Kirkpatrick believes will lead his Lady Trojans to success.

“We just have to compete, that’s everything for us,” Kirkpatrick emphasized. “We just want to compete and last year at the end of year we really got it. We knew what it was like to go in and battle every pitch. That was the turning point for the team. I think competition breeds good things. When we competed it was always fun to watch, whether we won or not.”