Hadley Fuhrman felt as though she was a bit too up and down with the bat in her hands last spring, struggling to find a rhythm as she toggled back and forth between being a slap hitter and trying to swing away.

This season, the Franklin softball senior doesn't have to deal with any such ambiguity; second-year coach Britt Harvey has made it quite clear what she wants her Grizzly hitters to do.

"Dents in the fence is our goal," Harvey said. "They've bought into the idea of swinging hard and swinging through a ball. It's no longer, 'We're just satisfied with contact' — it's how much damage we can do when we strike the ball. And you're seeing our hitters start to actually believe that and start to buy in. They don't hang their heads on swing and miss anymore. They realize it's going to happen, and it's better to be all in and miss than give half effort and just dink it out there."

Harvey is hoping that a more aggressive approach at the plate, coupled with a strong nucleus in the pitching circle, can help the Griz scale the top of the HCAC mountain. Picked third in the preseason coaches' poll heading into the 2026 campaign, Franklin has consistently ranked among the league's top teams but hasn't emerged on top since winning its lone HCAC tournament title in 2018.

The Grizzlies have finished second or third in the conference each of the last three years, only to be knocked out by Mount St. Joseph one game short of the tourney final. Transylvania has beaten MSJ in the last three title games.

"There's a bunch of girls that are tired of finishing second or third," Fuhrman said, "and I am one of those people."

The good news is that Franklin has plenty of reason to believe it can seize the crown this year. The top two starting pitchers from a year ago, juniors Lauren Duncan and Zoey Kugelman, are back, and they'll be complemented by senior Kamzi Gross and freshman Rylan Young. Kugelman, who plays third base when she isn't throwing, was an All-HCAC pick last year as a utility player.

Junior catcher Kendall Lowry should be back at full strength to handle the pitching staff after a late-season injury cut her 2025 season short.

Elsewhere in the lineup, the Grizzlies return another All-HCAC bat in sophomore first baseman Liv Staigl and have a number of other regulars back in the fold. Fuhrman, who has emerged as the leader for this year's club, is back at shortstop after starting 31 games a year ago; infielder Ruth Kaiser and outfielders Kaylee Stewart and McKenna Lucas also started at least 28 games apiece last spring.

Those veterans are being pushed by a solid freshman class as well as transfer second baseman Jaylee Fansler, who batted .349 last spring as a freshman at Ohio Northern.

Beyond all of the new and returning talent is a comfort that comes from having had a full season under Harvey, who feels far more comfortable at the helm than she did coming into her first season in Franklin.

"I'm a lot more confident," she said. "The women are really bought in to the culture that we're trying to create, changing our approach to the game, the idea of every rep, every day, and it doesn't matter what you're doing. And they're buying into it."

"We've learned that we have to keep the energy going all the time, and we've worked on that in practice," Fuhrman agreed. "When days are cold or we're very tired, we have to keep pushing ourselves. That's a big thing we're going to keep working on."

The hope is that sustaining that energy will help keep the ship steady throughout the spring schedule — and steadiness, Harvey believes, will ultimately be the key to a championship.

"Winning the right games," the coach said. "Showing up consistently through the entirety of the conference season."

Dents in the fence, marks in the win column.