There’s something going on with the St. Henry High School softball team. The girls are playing with renewed vigor after suffering through nine losing seasons in a row. They are hitting a ton. They are smiling a lot. Enthusiasm is sky high with high fives, handshakes and hand claps. They are pumping themselves up with shouts and chants.
They are also doing some serious stomping. The suddenly ascending Crusaders have won games 18-4, 15-0, 19-0, 18-2 and 15-4. They’re surviving, too, with scores of 17-10, 17-14, 27-21 and 33-21.
That’s a lot of scoring, on both sides of the ball. But it’s also a lot of winning, something St. Henry has experienced very little of since its last district championship in 2018. The last time the Crusaders had a winning season was 2015. They had a stretch from 2021-25 when they put together season win totals of three, six, two, two and five.
After beating Villa Madonna on Saturday, April 25, the Crusaders had a record of 10-5. That’s more wins than the three previous seasons combined when they went 9-56. More importantly, they’ve all but clinched the No. 2 seed in the 34th District tournament.
That’s a bona fide transformation whether the wins are pretty or not. But first-year coach Chris Schreiber doesn’t like to look at it as winning ugly. He calls it winning creatively.
“Did I think it would happen this quick?” said Schreiber. “No, I didn’t. But I thought it would eventually happen and it’s really been a pleasure to see it now.”
It all makes sense to senior Korra Zimmer. She’s seen more than her share of losing at St. Henry and welcomes the new normal. She sees the coaching staff as creativity in action.
“We were in the batting cages a lot over the winter and talking about hitting, and all the girls are really improved,” said Zimmer, one-half of a twin tandem with sister Kenna. “We’re having so much more fun now that we’re winning.”
Coach Schreiber knew they would. He just had to get creative about bringing it out.
“When I got here, I saw that there was a lot more talent than the records indicated,” said Schreiber, who spent the previous eight seasons as coach at Notre Dame Academy, the last two as head coach. “We have girls who can hit. We’re doing better in the field. Our pitching is very young and even there we’ve been doing better.”
Crusaders start swinging back
The Crusaders are batting .443 as a team, a top 10 figure in the state and the area’s best. They lead the state with 14.5 runs per game, and they don’t mind taking the extra base to get some extra runs.
This is where St. Henry gets really creative. Crusaders batters have been hit by 27 pitches. Their added ability to coax walks and force errors on squarely hit balls makes them especially dangerous on the base paths, where they are running aggressively. St. Henry has been successful on 108 of its first 113 stolen base attempts, ranking state top 10 in steals.
The Crusaders are led in batting average by Kenna Zimmer at .569. She’s one of four .500 hitters on the team, a group also including Payton Wright, Sydney Nelson and Ashlyn Summers.
“We have improved significantly,” Kenna Zimmer said. “I can say that because we know a lot more because we’ve been taught a lot more.”
There are three more hitters batting .400 or better: Taylor Witham, Olivia Rolfes and Korra Zimmer. Seniors Hazel Hunt and Morgan Conley and one of the youngest players, eighth grader Emmy Mathews, are also seeing the ball well. It’s all bereft of homers as the Cru have yet to go deep this season.
“The power will come,” said Schreiber, who emphasizes individual instruction and discussion. “In the meantime, I’ll take all the doubles and triples I can get. Just make good contact, find the gaps and bunt well. Their adaptability to what we’re teaching has been great. I couldn’t be prouder because it’s a testament to their hard work, our senior leadership and team chemistry.”
Korra Zimmer, the catcher, and Kenna Zimmer at first base see to that. Kenna’s on-base percentage at leadoff is approaching .700. Korra’s OBP in the No. 2 spot is north of .600, after getting hit by a team-high seven pitches. As a result, she unofficially leads the St. Henry girls track and field team in bruises. The multi-sport standout is one of the area’s few small-school athletes competing in the simultaneously ongoing softball and track and field seasons.
“It’s unusual to see that done well,” Schreiber said. “We didn’t have Korra (in a canceled contest against Dayton) because she was at Senior Night for track. We’ve been able to do all right with that because track and field is working really well with us.”
Twin sisters, one heartbeat
The Zimmer twins set the on-base tone. As a team, St. Henry is getting on well more than half the time. Not only is there a crowd on the base paths, but things are also pretty tight in the dugout where seniors bang the railing to start a chant. The whole bench hoots and hollers after a win — sounds rarely heard at St. Henry.
“Our bond is amazing,” said Kenna Zimmer, who also plays varsity soccer. “It’s the closest this softball team has ever been. With this being our last year, the seniors want to end on a positive note. Me and my sister want to go out feeling really good about the team.”
The seniors never knew winning before this year, but they knew quiet bus rides. The quiet, however, has been replaced by a raucous enthusiasm. But the Crusaders have to keep getting on base and hitting.
The team ERA as they develop young arms is still too high. However, team tutelage and outside coaching seem to be working for a staff relying on a freshman and an eighth grader with little varsity experience. The team gave up just six runs over a three-game stretch before competing in this week’s Holmes Softball Bash.
They say it takes a village to succeed, but the Crusaders are taking that to extremes. They’re getting cooperation from everybody: the players, their parents and outside coaching, team supporters and fans, other St. Henry teams, and the school’s sports-aware administration. Athletic director Jim Demler and principal Grant Brannen are former coaches with successful track records who understand nuances of winning.
“I couldn’t do it alone and I have great assistant coaches, and the coachability of the kids is unreal,” Schreiber said. “The support I get from Mr. Demler and Mr. Brannen is great and that really makes it easier.”
The team ends the work week Friday by celebrating its collaborative effort at St. Henry Softball Night at the Races 2026. The event at Legend’s Bar and Grill/Bock’s Billiards in Covington starts at 6 p.m. First race is 7 p.m. All proceeds directly benefit the softball team. A $25 admission buys food and drinks. There are also split-the-pot giveaways and raffles all evening.
So yes, there is something going on with the St. Henry softball team. It’s called winning, and winning is infectious even when it’s a little less than pretty. For a program that spent nearly a decade riding home in silence, the noise around St. Henry now feels like its own kind of victory. This isn’t about runs. This is about a culture waking up and the Crusaders rediscovering who they are.
“There’s no such thing as a bad win,” Schreiber said. “When you don’t win a lot like these girls and you start winning, lots of good things can happen. That’s what’s going on with us right now.”