The Richmond varsity softball program’s latest Midnight Madness practice to mark the start of fall sports training was a homecoming of sorts – and a family reunion of sorts.

When second-year coach Trent Thompson guided the Spartans through their paces early Monday morning at Southview Park, he did so with new assistant coach Jaedyn Lopez. Lopez, a 2022 Richmond graduate, was in the program for two seasons before briefly playing junior college softball. She’s helping to coach while she studies nursing at Lex La-Ray Technical Center in Lexington, she said.

One of the players being supervised by Thompson and Lopez was Lopez’s kid sister Kynlee. Having her older sister as a coach is “really exciting,” Kynlee Lopez said.

“I think already she’s really helped out the team,” she said. “She’s … set … expectations way high.”

Jaedyn Lopez expects coaching her sister to be “nice,” yet “a little tough.”

“We’re kind of a little … hardheaded,” she remarked.

“So rude. I said nice things about you,” cracked …