BUTLER TWP — Program stability has been hard to attain for Butler High School varsity girls softball and lacrosse.

Tina O’Donnell and Ashley Argyros hope to change all of that.

Both were recently hired as head coaches of those respective programs. O’Donnell becomes the Golden Tornado’s fourth softball coach in eight years while Argyros is Butler’s third girls lacrosse coach in as many seasons.

“I’m planning on being here for a while,” O’Donnell said. “I want to provide stability and discipline, give the program an opportunity to grow.”

Butler was 14-17 overall in the past two seasons, 11-15 in section play. O’Donnell has spent the past few seasons coaching softball at Butler Junior High and has been a varsity assistant for the Tornado before.

She has been heavily involved in Butler youth softball.

“I know the talent is here and the numbers are good,” O’Donnell said. “There are plenty of girls playing softball at the younger levels.

“We’ve primarily lacked dedication to the program. We’ve got a lot of dedicated kids who are willing to work hard. They stay involved with their summer teams. We need to get them to want to play for the high school program.

“I’m going to bond and build relationships with these girls,” O’Donnell added.

While O’Donnell believes Butler will be competitive come spring, she admits the program needs to develop pitching.

“We lack pitching right now, so it may take a couple of years to become a consistent playoff team, but we’re on the right track,” O’Donnell said.

Argyros is a 2009 Seneca Valley graduate who played on lacrosse teams there that won three consecutive section championships. She went on to play lacrosse at George Mason University.

A teacher at Butler High School, Argyros was an assistant lacrosse coach at Seneca Valley in 2014 and coaches club lacrosse for Pittsburgh Select.

“I’m really excited about this opportunity to build a program here,” Argyros said. “We’ve got the numbers and the interest in the sport.

“It’s up to the coaches to put it together.”

Argyros said she began playing lacrosse in seventh grade, but “it’s totally different now” in her view.

“When I first played, we had 20 girls comprising one junior high team,” she said. “Now at Butler, we have 25 to 30 girls comprising a seventh grade team and another 25 to 30 playing in eighth grade. The numbers are good here.”

Butler girls lacrosse won one game at the varsity level last season.

“We will start from scratch with the girls coming in,” Argyros said. “We’re going to learn something new every day, then establish weekly goals and begin accomplishing them.

“The long-term goals are winning the section and making the playoffs. But that all starts with focus on the next opponent and taking it game by game.”