The summer sports season gets underway Monday when Iowa Mennonite hosts Highland in a Southeast Iowa Superconference softball showdown.

IMS is coming off of a season that saw them finish 3-16. At the plate, IMS lost their two leading hitters from a season ago with Avery Blauvelt finishing the year at .429 and Hannah Harris at .364 and departing through graduation. IMS does return Rubye Ney and Mia Graber who both finished the season hitting .333. In the circle, they lose the experience of Harris who led the team with 63 innings thrown and a 5.78 ERA but return Leah Bontrager who got valuable experience as an eighth grader throwing 22 innings. IMS head coach Katheryn Ney talked about this year’s team.

Ney

Highland enters play off of a 14-13 year. The Huskies return the top six hitters from last year’s lineup including Aly Stokes and her .333 average. In the circle, Highland has three arms back including Megan Hoenig who went 127 innings in her junior year with a 2.63 ERA and 12-9 overall record. Splitting time with her were sophomore Shalyn Kirk, eighth grade Grace Batcheller and freshman Jenna Sands. This week, Highland head coach Carrie Wieland talked about what has her excited about this year’s team.

Carrie

These two teams met twice a year ago with the Huskies sweeping both games. You can hear all of the action live tonight on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Washington HyVee pregame show at 6p.m. and first pitch at 6:30 in Kalona.