FORT WAYNE – Some expected to be here, others were a bit surprised. But now all of Bishop Dwenger’s coaches and players are confident they’re ready to compete against Class 3A’s top-ranked team in the Saints’ first trip to state in softball.

“At the beginning of the year, coach (Beth) Peters came in and mentioned to me, ‘We can win state this year,’ ” said Dwenger head coach Dave Moyer, whose eighth-ranked team will play Boonville at 4:30 p.m. today at Ben Davis. “I didn’t say ‘yes’ exactly, but I said, ‘We can, but it’s going to take some work on our part.’ ”

The consensus among players is they knew the team was going to be good but didn’t realize how good.

Catcher Elaine Rorick said she “did not even imagine we’d be coming this far.” But freshman teammate Erica Miller said, “I always knew we had it in us.”

But first there was an adjustment period with mixing three freshmen – Miller, Kelsey Richard and Sara Spaulding – into the starting lineup. The team lost twice in April but then went unbeaten in the SAC and won six games in the postseason by a combined 51-4.

“I think we all wanted it, but we really didn’t know how everything would play out,” senior Anna Garner said. “But starting the season and seeing how well we were working with one another, I think we all expected to be at this now.”

The Saints (26-2) will have to beat a team that has been equally as dominant.

The Pioneers (34-1) won 18 games by at least seven runs and have what coach Mike Wilson called the “best hitting team we’ve ever had” in his 25 years of coaching. That includes teams that won the state championship (2007), were runner-up (2006) and made nine state appearances.

Boonville is hitting .362, and the lowest average among its nine starters is .309. Senior Alex Baumgart’s .412 is the best, but Kirby Schuble has team highs of nine home runs and 47 RBI, and Samantha Saltzman leads in hits (49).

Dwenger ace Andrea Filler (15-1, 1.28 ERA) will have the challenge of containing them.

“You’ve got to go in there confident, but you can’t underestimate the other team and you can’t be overconfident,” Filler said. “That’s why I’m still a little nervous. I don’t know anything about them, but they obviously have to be good, as good as us, and hit all the way around the batting order, have nice solid defense, to make it to state. They will be a threat for sure.”

So will the Saints, who bat .416 as a team. But Dwenger’s hitters will have an interesting challenge. Wilson uses three pitchers: Megan Noe (13-0, 1.27 ERA), Chelsey Goldman (12-0, 1.11) and Samantha Meyer (9-1, 0.93).

“They’re all good, but none of them are shut-down, all-state type pitchers,” Wilson said. “They’re all a little different. When one gets in trouble, we go to the next, and they’ve been good about that. I almost always use two and try to change momentum. It’s going to happen.

“As good a hitting team as it sounds like Fort Wayne has got, we’re going to have to give them a different look at some point. It just seems like sometimes change for sake of change works. No matter what the second pitcher is, it seems to change momentum a bit and slow them down.”

sclardie@jg.net