Senior Lex Warner, left, and classmate Jazi Cangany are two of the few remaining holdovers from Center Grove’s 2019 state championship team.
Daily Journal file photo
Heading into her first softball season at Center Grove, Lex Warner found herself hesitant to speak up. Being a freshman coming onto a loaded team that included a pair of All-State seniors in Abby Herbst and Piper Belden was somewhat intimidating — but Trojans coach Alyssa Coleman encouraged Warner to be more vocal and prove she could fit in.
After a few weeks, things had changed.
“Once we got her to start talking,” Coleman said, “she never shut up.”
Warner let her bat speak for her plenty, hitting .344 and clubbing a team-high nine home runs for the 2019 Trojans, who ended the season with 18 straight victories and a Class 4A state championship. Three years later, she’s the primary remaining link to that title team, and she’s eagerly embraced the mother hen role for this one.
“I had incredible role models my freshman year,” Warner said. “Abby and Piper, they kind of led the way for me, so it’s great to be in that position to lead the team. And it’s great to have this team especially; they’re very coachable, and we’re for the team rather than ourselves. So it’s great to be a part of that and leading that.”
And it’s not just a forced “I’m a senior, so I’m supposed to do this” type of leadership. Warner sets the tone for Center Grove in every conceivable way, from her on-field performance to practice habits — even driving some of her younger teammates to school.
“She’s just authentically a leader,” Coleman said. “She doesn’t know how not to be, and it challenges that theory of, ‘Can you teach leadership?’ She’s just always had it. She’s willing to say the things that need to be said, she’s a good example with her work ethic — and it never hurts when your talent backs it up.”
That part has always been there. Warner batted a team-high .427 last season, and she’s been a rock-solid presence at third base since her freshman year — or at least she had been until a recent shoulder injury relegated her to designated-player duty. She hopes to be back to playing full-time in the next few weeks.
Warner acknowledges that missing practices and being in the dugout for most of the game has been frustrating, but she cited the solid play of junior Ruby Thompson at the hot corner in her stead and said that the experience has reminded her that she doesn’t have do do it all herself.
“It’s not even just in the game watching them; during practice and stuff, when I can’t take reps with everybody, it opens my eyes a bit more to falling back on the team,” Warner said. “It’s just great to watch the team mesh back together … To see them all work together and fill in that hole has been great to watch.”
By the time the bigger games come in mid- to late May, Warner figures to be back in her regular spot, and her leadership will be pivotal on what is still a relatively young Center Grove squad. Most of the current players were in middle school when the Trojans ran the table three years, so having players like Warner (and fellow seniors Sydney McConnell, Maya Netter and Jazi Cangany who were also in uniform for that championship win) helps make those lofty expectations feel more reachable.
“I think them having that experience … the girls look at them and see that, yeah, it’s a real thing,” Coleman said.
“I came in and the bar was set automatically, as high as it possibly could be — what more can you do besides win state?” Warner added. “So when that happened, it kind of set the bar for the rest of my years. I know what this feels like, and I know what it takes.”
After losing her sophomore season to a pandemic and getting her junior year cut short by a regional loss to Columbus North, Warner is hungrier than ever to finish her high school softball career the same way she started it.
She’s not playing softball in college — studying to be an anesthesiologist won’t leave enough time for the full-time job that is Division I athletics — so Warner is definitely feeling an even greater urgency to make this spring count. Painfully close early-season losses to Whiteland and Pendleton Heights have only heightened that.
”It kind of gave us a reality check,” she said. “Even though we do play for Center Grove, all the wins are not just going to be handed to us. We have to work for it.”
The once-quiet girl wearing No. 18 will make sure her teammates don’t forget that.
