St. Edward's Zdroik chooses Valpo
St. Edward junior Lindsay Zdroik wanted to find a small school close to home to call her college home in two years.
Division I Valparaiso University will be that school.
Zdroik gave her commitment to coach Kate Stake's softball program on Sunday night after returning home from participating in a Crusaders' camp.
“I wanted a small school close to home and that's exactly what Valpo is,” Zdroik said. “I really liked the coaches and the team.”
The right-handed Zdroik led the Fox Valley area in strikeouts last season with 232 in 145 innings. She went 13-11 for the Green Wave with a 2.17 ERA and only 19 walks.
At the plate, she hit .530 with 4 home runs, 32 RBI, 14 doubles, 4 triples and just 7 strikeouts in 83 at-bats. She had a .589 on-base percentage and a .940 slugging percentage.
A two-year varsity pitcher, she enters her junior season with 21 wins and 332 strikeouts.
“I'm really happy for Lindsay,” said St. Edward coach Jaci Corn. “She has worked really hard to achieve the highest level of softball. Her overall pitching game and her offensive production have improved tremendously since she came into the program and she has become an invaluable part of our program. She's also become a team leader and a player who our team looks up to.”
Zdroik, who plays for the Wasco Diamoinds travel softball program, credits several of her coaches for her rise to the Division I level.
“My pitching coach, Jill Waldron, has helped my pitching get a lot better,” said Zdroik, who said she'll study education in college in the hopes of becoming a special-education teacher. “Coach Matt (Schacht) and coach Bill Morrow have definitely pushed me to become better and coach Corn has always been very supportive and pushed me.”
At Valpo, which is where St. Edward graduate Tarah McShane is now a senior infielder/catcher, Zdroik will join a program that went through a coaching change in the middle of the season last year but has now landed Stake, a Buffalo Grove graduate who played second base for four years at Illinois State. Stake has been an assistant college coach for eight seasons, most recently the last three at Hofstra. She is assisted at Valpo by Joy Ichiyama, who was appointed interim head coach in late April of last season.
“She give really good instruction,” said Zdroik of Stake. “She was really nice and when I went to the camp and talked to the players I felt like they'd be fun people to play with.”
Valpo, also the former home of Larkin graduates Courtney LaFerle and Tracy Korth as well as Huntley alum Amanda Wisniewski, among others from the Fox Valley area, were 24-34 overall last season and 11-8 in the Horizon League.
Zdroik, who also considered Upper Iowa, ISU and Bradley, is the second Fox Valley area softball player in the past week to commit to a Division I scholarship. Hampshire sophomore Peyton DeChant verbaled to Loyola last week.