News File Photo Rogers City's Hannah Fleming (7, center) is mobbed by teammates after hitting a two-run home run against Hillman in a district softball championship game last Saturday in Hillman.

ROGERS CITY–In the top of the third inning of Saturday’s district softball championship game, Rogers City’s Mary Brege found herself at the plate and behind 2-0.

Brege continued to work in the at-bat and eventually evened the count at 2-2. With the count even, Brege then launched a solo home run over the left field fence.

Five batters later, Hannah Fleming hit a two-run shot to right field, capping an inning in which Rogers City scored four runs and took control of the game.

“For me, I don’t even really think about (it), it’s hard to explain. I don’t even really think about swinging like ‘Oh, that’s my perfect pitch. I just hit it,” Brege said. “That one in Hillman, that just happened to be my perfect pitch. I wasn’t even thinking about it.”

The Hurons’ power display and patience and at the plate is nothing new. Since 2013, Rogers City has been one of the area’s best offensive teams and a formidable opponent for any team it plays.

“We’ve always worked on hitting in Rogers City. We tweak it every year and this year coach (Mike) Bowden and coach (Duane) Pitts (have been in charge). It’s still the Huron-style of hitting, but they tweak it a little bit,” Rogers City coach Karl Grambau said. “We’re always trying to get better. We’re always trying to hit the ball to all fields (and) put the ball in play.”

The Hurons’ patience and prowess at the plate is a big reason the Hurons have won six consecutive district titles and they’re hoping it carries them further into the postseason today when they host a Division 4 regional today.

The Hurons (32-5) will play Lake Leelanau St. Mary at 10 a.m. in the first of two semifinals and Gaylord St. Mary will play Whittemore-Prescott at 11:30 a.m. with the championship game scheduled for 1 p.m.

As winners of regional titles in three in the last five years, the Hurons have plenty of postseason experience, but they’re not feeling overconfident ahead of today’s regional even with home field advantage.

“I think playing on our home field is definitely a big advantage and we’re all really excited because all of our fans are going to come out and support us,” Rogers City infielder Hannah Dittmar said. “I wouldn’t say we’re too confident about who we’re playing. We don’t really know that much about them, so it’s going to make us better, make us more cautious and make us play better.”

Rogers City’s offensive turnaround began in 2013 when Grambau attended an offseason softball camp. While he found that his team was doing a lot of the things recommended by coaches at the camp, Grambau was also introduced to Muhl Tech equipment by coaches at the University of Tennessee. The Muhl Tech equipment came with promises of increasing extra base hits and home runs.

The results were immediate and made an already talented program more dangerous. With an athletic team and assistant coach Gary Bisson mentoring the Hurons’ hitting technique, Rogers City increased its home run total from eight to 29 in 2013. The next season the Hurons hit 48 on the way to a state title. This season and in each of the last two seasons, the Hurons have hit at least 30.

The hitting regimen introduced in 2013 has carried over from year to year and is continually tweaked. It starts in the offseason when players work on hitting in the winter and continues throughout the softball season. Seventy five percent of Rogers City’s practices focus solely on hitting and different stations are set up where players focus on various aspects of hitting.

in the past, the Hurons have even holed up in the gym on a sunny, 80-degree days to fine-tune their approach at the plate.

It’s a system that teaches players to be patient at the plate while waiting on the perfect pitch and instills confidence in every player, so they can come through with the big hit when called upon. It also allows the Hurons to build a balanced lineup where every player–whether it’s Brege batting eighth or Fleming batting fourth– can hit and hit well.

“You have to have a balanced lineup and that’s what we want to do,” Grambau said. “We want everybody on the team to be able to hit and we want every girl in uniform to have the confidence they can go up and get a hit.”

For the last two seasons, Bowden and Pitts been invaluable members of Rogers City’s coaching staff and have helped continue to focus on the importance of hitting. At the start of the Hurons’ Wednesday practice, Pitts stood at home plate with bat in hand, reminding players of proper positioning at the plate. As he instructed the team, Pitts pointed out how far from the plate players should be, how their feet should be positioned before and during a swing and how to approach certain pitches.

This attention to detail has paid off for the Hurons as the competition gets harder in the postseason.

“Mr Pitts, I don’t know how he knows, but he just knows everything that’s wrong,” Dittmar said. “You hit a pop-up, he can tell you just bam, like that, (what to fix).”

Looking for that perfect pitch it’s always easy, but the Hurons take each at-bat as a new opportunity, rather than waiting on a specific pitch.

It also doesn’t hurt that the Hurons have a stellar 1-2 pitching punch and undeniable team chemistry.

In some ways, the Hurons’ success began in the fall when eight regulars on the softball team led the volleyball team to the state semifinals. Three other players bonded together on the JV team.

It helped that a lot of us played volleyball together. We knew each other really well from then. We’ve been playing Little League ever since we were tiny little tots together,” Brege said. “We knew each other pretty well and we know each other’s attitudes and temperaments and how to pick each other up. The chemistry is great, we’re like a family.”

Knowing one another’s temperaments comes in handy during the postseason when the pressure ramps up a notch. Whether they’re batting or playing defense, players encourage one another and if a mistake happens, players brush it off and move on to the next play.

“Having chemistry on the field is one of the most important things,” Brege said. “Someone makes an error, we’re just like, ‘Brush it off, you’ll get the next one’ whereas other teams that don’t have chemistry, that’s when they start breaking down.”

That belief in one other helps the Hurons handle whatever pressure they might come up against and they’ve become one of the area’s most consistent winners. That belief in each other will guide them today as they aim to capture a regional title at home.

“For me, how I stay calm, is knowing that could very much be my last game as a Huron softball player and I guess with that in mind, (thinking of) the team and knowing at the end of the season, this team will never come back,” Dittmar said. “Knowing that is what keeps us going forward.”

James Andersen can be reached via email at sports@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5694. Follow James on Twitter @ja_alpenanews.