One of the major questions facing North Kitsap's softball team this spring is how the defending Class 2A champions would replace senior catcher Mackenzie Phillips.

Earning Kitsap Sun co-softball player of the year honors in 2023, Phillips was a mainstay atop the Vikings' lineup during the team's 25-0 season, batting .522 with 10 doubles, four triples, nine home runs, 31 RBI, 39 runs and 13 walks. She's currently in her freshman season at Phoenix College in Arizona, hitting .373 with five home runs, 15 RBI and 17 runs in 20 games.

The 2024 season is only two games old for North Kitsap, but Vikings head coach Clay Blackwood believes he's found his next leadoff hitter: senior Cerenity Fake. During Tuesday's battle against fellow 2023 state tournament qualifier Olympic, Fake finished 2-for-4 with a double, triple and two runs scored in North Kitsap's 6-3 victory.

After the win, Fake talked about following in Phillips' footsteps as the Vikings' tone-setter in the lineup.

"I will never be her, Mackenzie's great," Fake said, "but it's a lot of fun."

Fake, who has committed to play next season at Lower Columbia Community College, actually hit leadoff for the Vikings as a sophomore before hitting behind Phillips in the No. 2 slot last season. She put up dynamic numbers: a .410 batting average with four doubles, eight home runs, 32 RBI, 34 runs and nine stolen bases.

"She's got the speed, she can drive the ball," Blackwood said. "She's a leadoff with pop."

Fake's talents aren't confined to what she can do at the plate and on the bases. Pitching seven innings in the Vikings' season-opening 9-3 win against Klahowya on March 15, Fake threw four shutout innings against Olympic in relief of junior starting pitcher and last year's Olympic League MVP Reese Anderson, who came into the game dealing with illness.

North Kitsap scored three runs in the fourth and two more in the seventh to rally from a 3-1 deficit. It was the first loss of the season for Olympic (3-1), which knocked off last year's state runner-up, Ridgefield, last week.

"They battled through some adversity today," Blackwood said. "It was nice to see them fight back."

Blackwood anticipates Fake working in tandem on the mound with Anderson, who handled a majority of the pitching duties in 2023 while sharing Kitsap Sun player of the year honors with Phillips.

"Those two are going to be huge this year," said Blackwood, who also noted that Hannah Richards could see time on the mound this spring. "I fully trust all my pitching staff on varsity. I know I can put them out there and get the job done."

Riding a 27-game winning streak heading into Thursday's home game against Bainbridge, Fake said the Vikings understand there is a target on their backs as defending champions. They are embracing the challenge without dwelling on what might be in store for them in the coming months.

"Some of us might feel a little pressure because we really want to win state again, but we don't want to get too ahead of ourselves," Fake said. "Just focus on one game at a time because that's what we did last year. We did so well, we didn't really focus on the end goal. We just kind of went game by game, win every single game, every single play, every single inning."

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: North Kitsap's Cerenity Fake looks like a real gem on softball diamond