The Trinidad State Softball team began the 2022 season on the road in Henderson, Nevada taking part in the College of Southern Coyote Invite and came away with two wins in their five games.

The Lady Trojans first game had them playing #5 ranked Salt Lake City Community College and fought hard but came up short 13-7 in the contest. In the first inning Sophomore Gabby Varela starting things off with a bang with a solo shot to give Trinidad an early lead. Fellow sophomore Ka'Zem Wood would follow with a homerun for herself. The game would go back and forth with the scored tied 6-6 going into the fourth inning when SLCC  would go on a 7-run scoring spree while holding the Trojans to just one run after that, a solo shot from freshman Angelique Navarro. Sophomore pitcher Chaunelle Penn had a solid outing in the circle but fell to some sloppy fielding costing the Trojans some runs.

In the second game of the day against Snow College, Trinidad's bats were silent and only were able to score three runs in the 13-3 loss. Sophomore Ramona Fossum hit a homerun in that game.

In the night cap, after waiting four hours to play, the Lady Trojans lit up the scoreboard with a 21-5 victory over CNCC (Colorado Northwestern Community College). It was bombs away as Fossum connected on her second HR of the day, followed by homeruns from Sydney Loyet, Nayshka Cordero, and Chaunelle Penn. Freshman pitcher Hannah Crouch picked up her first collegiate win .

The final day of the invite had Trinidad facing the host team CSN (College of Southern Nevada) and came away with a hard fought 7-5 victory in eight innings. Penn pitched the complete game only allowing five hits in the contest. CSN big inning was ignited by some sloppy fielding and throwing errors by the Lady Trojans. Fossum connected for her third HR of the season while sophomore Ciara Salazar collected a triple and Navarro had a double in the contest. The last game of the day didn't go as planned as Trinidad could only must three hits in the 19-1 loss to Central Arizona.

"A couple of years ago we came to this tournament and left 0-5, and this year we picked up two wins, so for me, that's a positive," Trojan softball coach Steve Swazo said. "Playing Salt Lake right off the bat told me that we can play with the best of them, especially putting up seven runs against a very good team. We just need to clean up our defense as we had some miscues in the infield and also some throwing errors that led to the games we lost. Once they can play a complete game I am very confident we will win some ball games. I'm very happy with their performance and this team will improve each week. Now all the first game jitters should be out of the way and look for an exciting year to watch Trojan softball."

TSC is already setting their sites on the team's homerun record of 118 set in 2017 as in their first five games have already hit nine HR to begin the season.

This coming weekend, the Lady Trojans (weather permitting) are scheduled to play at home Friday and Saturday against Garden City and Frank Phillips at 12-2 each day at Southside Park.