In just her second year as the head coach for Strawberry Crest softball, Johnson now has two Coach of the Year awards
Strawberry Crest head coach Ashton Johnson was recently awarded Coach of the Year for the Western Conference’s National Division, her second time receiving the award throughout her two years as head coach.
The award is voted on by coaches throughout the National Division that features Armwood, Chamberlain, Freedom, Hillsborough, King, Middleton, Strawberry Crest, Tampa Bay Tech and Wharton.
“It’s definitely surprising, I didn’t know that it would happen at all,” Johnson said. “I know that getting Coach of the Year was one of my goals coming in, but I didn’t think that it would happen so quickly, let alone twice in a row. But it means a lot to me. It makes me feel that other coaches are seeing the work that the girls are putting in and respecting what we’re doing as a team.”
In addition to Johnson’s appearance, seven different players for Crest were named to the All-Conference team, with Ariana Rego, Kennedy Shea, Hannah Booth, Lola Coole and Ariana Murillo earning first-team honors while Kylee Dodson and Alexa Ringuette earned second-team honors.
The award comes on the heels of a significant jump from the softball team under Johnson. After playing under long-time head coach Mindy Miltner – the first and only other head softball coach in Crest’s history – she served as an assistant coach for three seasons before taking over the program last year. In her first season at the helm, the Chargers jumped from 5-7 in 2020 to 15-7 in 2021, ultimately falling to Durant in the district championship.
“I had some really big shoes to fill with Mindy Miltner being the head coach for so long,” Johnson said. “I was an assistant under her for about three seasons which helped a lot because I got to see how she did things and how she ran things on the coaching side.”
This season, with the addition of a star pitcher in Rego, some major production coming from a talented freshman class and a boost from veteran leadership, Crest was able to knock off Wharton and top-seeded Wiregrass Ranch in their district tournament to claim a district title.
“Last year we had a really good run, we had a much better record than we had seen in a while, but we fell short in our district championship,” Johnson said. “That was definitely a tough pill to swallow so one of our big goals for this year was one, to get back to the district championship, and then two, find a way to win it. And as a team, collectively, we achieved both of those goals which was awesome.”
With the nature of high school sports it’s often difficult to repeat the success of previous seasons, let alone build on that success, as players graduate and rosters are constantly changing. But Crest had a very young roster this year, one that has the potential to return even stronger next year as they will lose just four seniors to graduation.
“Next year my big goal for these girls will fall heavily on the relationship side because I think that weighs heavily on how they play on the field as well,” Johnson said. “I’m going to have six juniors returning so they’ll all be seniors. Them finding a way to gel together as a senior class, that’s something that they’ll have to navigate. And again, that’s one of my goals that I have, helping them become leaders. And then with the younger girls it’s just making sure that we’re setting a good example so that they can continue doing what they’re doing, keeping a positive atmosphere during practice and games, picking each other up when things don’t really go our way. That way when they become seniors they’ll know exactly what to do and how to help the younger girls that are there then.”
