Trojan seniors in a class by themselves

Over the course of its ascent as an athletic program, Center Grove has graduated some prolific classes, including several with 10 or more Division I collegiate athletes.

But in terms of sheer volume of top-level talent, the incoming senior class might be the most impressive group of Trojans yet.

The list begins with three athletes who have reached the highest levels in their respective sports. Golfer Erica Shepherd, who has already played in two U.S. Opens, is one of the most decorated young players in the country. Trayce Jackson-Davis has become a top basketball recruit nationally, earning a gold medal with Team USA this summer and positioning himself as a likely McDonald’s All-American. And Abby Herbst is a highly-rated softball prospect who accepted a scholarship offer from Wisconsin just after her freshman year ended.

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It doesn’t end with those three, either. Girls basketball standouts Ella Thompson and Emma Utterback both have multiple offers from Division I programs, and several of their other classmates across various sports will join them in the months to come, if they haven’t already.

For each of these top-tier performers, being surrounded by friends in similar positions has been a blessing in different ways.

Even across different sports, many of these Trojans acknowledge that seeing their classmates earn big-time accolades is a motivator. Jackson-Davis, for example, cited Shepherd’s accomplishments on the golf course.

“You want to do that too,” he said, “so you just keep working and working and working until you get there.”

“It gives you the confidence, like, ‘Oh, I can get there,’” Utterback agreed. “The people around me are in the same community, they’re getting there, so it’s not impossible for me to get there. So I think it definitely pushes me.”

Additionally, it creates somewhat of a support group — many of the athletes in the class have busy schedules that include a great deal of travel, and having peers who can understand that is important.

“It’s pretty cool to have people that can relate to you about how much you travel in the summers or how much you have to travel and sacrifice during the school year,” Herbst said. “We relate to each other a lot, because it’s just a thing we all have to deal with.”

“I think it’s more on the academic side,” added Shepherd, who does not play golf for Center Grove’s team. “Most of us are in high-level classes and we just kind of understand, help each other out, because we know that our time is just so limited and our sports are number one to us.”

Center Grove has had its share of high-profile athletes come through — A.J. Zapp went in the first round of the 1996 Major League Baseball draft, and football players such as Jovan Swann and Russ Yeast have earned national accolades in recent years. But this might be the first time that the school has had multiple athletes in one class that are this highly regarded in their respective sports, including some with a legitimate chance to play for a living.

Still just 17 years old, Shepherd already has appeared in two majors and made her first LPGA tournament cut. Verbally committed to play her college golf at Duke, she will compete for the United States at the Junior Ryder Cup in Paris this September.

Jackson-Davis has enjoyed a meteoric rise toward the top of the 2019 recruiting rankings over the past year or two, climbing up into the top 20 this summer (15th on ESPN, 16th on Rivals and 18th on 247Sports). He has already received scholarship offers from such blue-blood programs as Michigan State and UCLA, and the list of suitors has been growing rapidly in recent months. He is, along with Fort Wayne North’s Keion Brooks, a front-runner for Mr. Basketball this coming season.

Herbst entered her junior season rated as the No. 41 player in her class nationwide, and she’s done nothing to damage her stock since. She earned Junior All-America recognition from MaxPreps, batting .585 and going 21-1 with a 0.56 earned-run average while helping the Trojans reach the Class 4A semistate final.

“I think it’s really cool how all of us, we all go to the same school and we’re all doing our own thing,” Jackson-Davis said. “For me, it’s on the court; with Erica it’s on the course, and then with Abby it’s on the field.

“I think it’s really cool how they’re chasing their dreams and I’m doing the same.”

Throughout the summer, these Trojan classmates were scattered all over North America playing in various tournaments and taking recruiting visits. It’s often difficult to make time for friends, but most of them manage to stay in touch from a distance. Social media becomes the primary means of out-of-town communication.

Fortunately for each of them, there’s a mutual understanding. Utterback, for instance, knows she’s not going to see much of her close friend Shepherd this time of year with so many high-profile golf events taking place.

“We’re all a pretty close-knit group,” Utterback said, “and we all are very supportive of each other because we all know the kind of hard work that it takes to get there.”

That work is paying off at levels rarely seen in this area.