The roster for the Lehigh Valley Carpenter Cup softball team has been announced by head coach Brian Fehnel, and it includes 13 rising juniors and seniors from District 11.

Among the players named to the squad are three from the Times News area.

Palmerton’s Sydney Frantz and Carly Gaffney, along with Northwestern’s Sage Toman, will be participating in the annual event, which is sponsored by the Philadelphia Phillies.

Lehigh Valley is in Bracket D this season, along with Olympic Colonial, Inter-AC, and Burlington County.

Assisting Coach Fehnel are Ricky Sechler, Bill Held, and Kelly Dulaney.

Others players on the roster include Ariana Castillo (Liberty), Autumn Held (Emmaus), Hailey Pyle (Bethlehem Catholic), Kate Yadush (Whitehall), Brianna Amey (Emmaus), Aubrey Steiner (Whitehall), Delaney Troxell (Catasauqua), Alina Weaver (Nazareth), Karlye Teman (Palisades), and Addison Sabo (Liberty).

The team prepared for the upcoming tournament by scrimmaging the Patriettes 23U team at Patriots Park in Allentown last Wednesday. The two teams ended up playing a pair of 2-2 ties.

“I’m super excited,” said Coach Fehnel, now in his second year managing the team. “We have a bunch of hitters and five pitchers. I think we have a talented team this year. We’ll see how we do.”

Lehigh Valley had five hits in the first scrimmage, including an RBI triple to left by Castillo, a double to right center by Weaver, and singles by Frantz, Teman and Sabo.

Castillo and Held had doubles in the second scrimmage.

“I think they’re starting to warm up to each other,” said Fehnel of his players. “They’re joking around. They all play on tournament teams, so there’s that bond.”

Lehigh Valley has six returners from last year’s team, which was eliminated in the semifinals by Mid Penn.

“Mid Penn’s pitcher is back this year. I’m sure, at some point, if we have to play Mid Penn, we’ll see her,” Fehnel said.

But with considerable interest from high school players and a lot of input from their coaches this year, Fehnel is confident that Lehigh Valley will see much success this week.

“Before the high school season started, we sent out emails to all the high school coaches to get back to us with who they thought they would like to nominate for us to come watch play,” said Fehnel. “We went and watched everyone play throughout the whole season. I saw more high school softball than I’d ever seen in my life. We saw everyone play three or four times, and then we selected the players we wanted.”

Lehigh Valley’s first game is scheduled for Tuesday against Inter-AC at FDR Park in Philadelphia.