It almost seems fitting.

Given the success of so many high school softball teams in this area over the past few years, it was only a matter of time before a local college reaped the benefits.

Enter Butler County Community College.

The Pioneers will open their 2018 season at 3 p.m. March 19, hosting Westmoreland Community College at Laura Doerr Park.

And they will be a team worth seeing.

BC3 may well be fielding one of the best junior college softball teams in the country this spring.

The team finished 20-5 a year ago and was ranked 16th in NJCAA Division III at season’s end. The bulk of that team is coming back.

Included in that mix is New Castle graduate Nikki Houk. All she did was hit .627 as a freshman, sporting the highest batting average in all of NJCAA, all divisions. She also hit six home runs, two grand slams in one inning, and stole 26 bases without getting caught.

The all-Butler County battery of Jessi Reed and Alexis Vogan isn’t too bad, either. Reed, a Knoch graduate, was 14-1 on the mound with a 1.32 earned run average a year ago. She struck out 57 and walked only 15.

Vogan, a Slippery Rock grad, hit .541 last spring, the seventh highest average in NJCAA.

Coming from successful high school programs, these girls already know how to win. So does BC3 head coach Dan Beebe, who takes over the reins from retired coach Roni Mall this year.

Beebe guided Moniteau to the state championship game in 2016. He was 109-20 in six years as the Warriors’ head coach and was an assistant coach for the Pioneers last season.

One of Beebe’s standout players at Moniteau, Alyssa Dailey, will be BC3’s second baseman. She will form a double play combination with Knoch grad Sydney Natili while Mars graduate Bailey Campbell is at third base.

Lydia Roth, point guard on the Pioneers’ women’s basketball team, will be joined in the outfield by Jesse Yenick from Knoch, Lauren Smith from Seneca Valley and Mackenzie Bortmas from Moniteau.

This is a team equipped to do some serious damage at the junior college level — and the BC3 softball program isn’t likely to drop off the national radar after this year.

Beebe is one of the top coaches around and he has the pedigree to prove it. He also has an enduring passion for the sport and knowledge of softball teams in this region that will assist him in recruiting.

Winning doesn’t hurt in that regard, either, and look for BC3 to be doing plenty of that.

It wasn’t all that long ago this school didn’t have a softball team at all.

Now it has one of the best at its level and offers area players two more years to develop their games for transfer to four-year schools, while taking a legitimate shot at a region and/or national championship.

Not a bad deal.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle