With two returning coaches and a team of determined girls, the varsity girls’ softball team is excited to see their dreams and goals become reality in the 2025 season.
This season, the softball team welcomes back coach Tyler Shomin, who stepped away years ago to focus on fatherhood and the exciting opportunities his children were experiencing. Returning as an assistant coach, Audra Whetstone, also previously resigned for similar reasons. Remaining on the coaching staff from previous years is Annie Frymire in her fourth year of coaching high school.
Shomin’s colorful coaching career has lasted multiple decades, guiding various sports at differing levels.
“I have been coaching at Northview for over 36 years, starting with varsity softball as a varsity assistant when I student taught at Northview in 1989-90,” Shomin said. “Over that time I have also coached the girls varsity jv, freshmen, and middle school basketball [teams]. Middle school volleyball and middle school cross country teams. All at Northview.”
Shomin has always been drawn to softball, however. So much so, he decided to continue coaching even after retirement.
“I had recently retired from teaching full time, I loved Northview softball, the position was posted, and my family and friends encouraged it. Family first, teaching second, and softball third was always the rank of my focus when I last coached softball,” Shomin said. “Having teaching no longer on that list made my decision to apply much easier.”
A very respectable trait of Shomin is the fact that he’s family oriented. Taking time off to support his children in their athletic careers.
“I stepped away from softball so I could focus my time on my three kids. My daughters, Taylor, was playing volleyball for GVSU, and Teagan, was committed to play softball for GVSU the next year, and my son, Trajan, was playing Varsity hockey and baseball for Northview as an underclassman,” Shomin said.
But now that he’s back in action, Shomin is ready to take on this season, bat in hand.
“Our number one goal is to have fun, number two is to get better every day, number three is to win a conference championship, after that, let’s win a district game and see what happens. We discuss and work on them throughout practice daily,” Shomin said. Smiles lead to getting better and hopefully some victories.”
Also returning from some time off, Whetstone is very familiar with the softball world at northview.
“I started when I was first hired in 2007,” Whetstone said. “I coached prior to that but at Northview I coached jv for four years and then I became varsity assistant for four more and had to stop because I had children of my own, but now I’m back.”
Whetstone has big ideas for the girls this year, aswell. But she wants to make sure everyone has fun first.
“Oftentimes having fun comes with winning and just maintaining positive spirits. We definitely want to win conferences and we’d love to win districts. But just have a great overall season, everybody gets along, and shows up with a good hardworking positive attitude,” Whetstone said.
Alongside these two, Frymire has been involved with the softball community, inside and out of Northview, for over a decade.
“I have been coaching HS softball for the last 4 years, but have coached little league and travel softball for 12 years,” Frymire said. “I started when my oldest daughter was little and I haven’t stopped since. I love being a part of the Northview family.”
Frymire is looking forward to seeing how this year goes and happy to be leading a group of girls with all sorts of potential.
“We have a great group of girls with a nice mix of leaders and freshmen just starting out,” Frymire said. “I think this team is going to have a great season and I am excited to be a part of the program.”
Whetstone shows that it’s clear that these three mold well together.
“We vibe very well. I’ve always known Coach Shomin. His wife took care of my kids at daycare so I’ve known [him] but we’ve never coached together. And we both have the same goals and passion and organization and the way we talk to the girls and motivate them is very similar,” Whetstone said. “Coach Annie and I are just one in the same, were both about the same age, were both moms, we both were athletes, and we both have the same sense of humor and so we instantly clicked as well.”
Everyone is eager to see this team progress. The girls’ next home game is today, May 5th against Wayland Union. Come cheer them on!
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