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| Vikings star a team leader who does so by example |
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| Written by David Wolman | |||
| Friday, 19 June 2009 08:25 | |||
 Karly Schulte is a team player. She doesn’t worry about her statistics. Quiet by nature, she leads by example, but the numbers she posted for the Central Heights softball team this spring spoke volumes.Schulte shined on offense while also baffling opposing hitters on the mound. But the debate continues: At which position was she more dominant? Even her father, Central Heights assistant softball coach Kent Schulte, can attest to the quandary. “It’s pretty even there,” he said. “She’s maybe a slightly better pitcher. At our school, we rely on her a lot as a pitcher, just the fact that there’s more pressure with it. She handles it pretty well.” Opposing batters had trouble keeping up with Karly’s velocity, and when they did, they rarely scored on her. She went 10-3 and even posted a save for the Pioneer League regular-season champion Vikings. She allowed only 13 earned runs, 47 hits and only seven walks, while recording 101 strikeouts in 86 2/3 innings. But, Schulte, the Tri-County Offensive Softball Player of the Year, helped her cause at the plate in a big way. As a freshman, she batted .350. While she was pleased with her output, she wasn’t completely satisfied. “I did average my freshman season,” she said. Competitive by nature, she always looks for ways to improve her game. With the help of her father, she took batting lessons with Mark Nelson in Paola. That’s in addition to the many hours she spent in the batting cages and at bat with her summer softball team in Kansas City. After all, softball is a sport she has played since she was 8 and now spends 10 months on a year. “Mark Nelson does a great job of working with hitters,” her father said. “He helped a lot about taking the outside pitch to right field. She was improving her confidence and being more relaxed.” Those lessons helped Karly significantly improve her offensive numbers this season. She led the Vikings in several categories: batting average (.483), stolen bases (14), hits (28), doubles (7) and triples (5). “I was a little more selective,” she said. “I didn’t swing at as many balls that were up in the zone.” She even belted her first home run. “I was really relaxed at the plate,” she said. “I saw a pitch I wanted and hit it. I didn’t know it was a home run until the second-base umpire signal.” But what Karly is even more eager to accomplish is to help her ever-improving Viking team, which went 14-5 this year, advance to the Class 3A state tournament next year. This year, the team was shut out by Osage City in the regional championship. “If we keep practicing like we did this year, we can do good things,” she said. “Everyone wants to make it to state someday.”
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