Kimberly Pierce: Fox Valley softball captain
At first glance, Kimberly Pierce might appear too laid back to really be a good softball player.
At first glance, that is.
Then, you spend more time watching her and someone reminds you she grew up in Florida and has only lived in South Elgin for a little over two years.
That's when you understand. And as you watch her play some more, you get a full appreciation of what softball really means to her.
"She doesn't let too much bother her, but when it comes to softball she's 100 percent all the time," says South Elgin coach Jason Schaal. "I've never had the chance to coach a player like that. The impact she's made on the South Elgin program will be long lasting."
The impact Pierce made on the area as a whole this season will be hard for anyone to match. Coach after opposing coach raved about her, she earned a Division I scholarship to Indiana State, and as a team captain, she helped lead the Storm to a 23-12 season and the program's second straight regional championship (South Elgin played Prairie Ridge on Wednesday in the Class 4A Woodstock sectional).
For her efforts and accomplishments, Pierce has been named the Honorary Captain of the 2009 Daily Herald Fox Valley All-Area team. She becomes the first South Elgin athlete, male or female, to be named a Daily Herald All-Area captain.
Statistically, Pierce's numbers are astounding. Going into sectional play she was hitting .553, had 7 home runs, 43 RBI, 15 doubles, a .922 slugging percentage, a .607 on-base percentage, had scored 46 runs, had 57 total hits, 95 total bases and had struck out just 13 times in 103 at-bats.
What the stats don't show is how teams tried to pitch around her or make her fish for off-speed pitches, knowing little that she has one of the best batting eyes a high-school player can possess.
"I've always improved as a hitter, but there's always room to improve more," said Pierce, whose father, Jim, is a 1979 Larkin graduate.
Schaal saw the complete player when Pierce, who will turn 18 on June 15 along with teammate Lauren Vitiello, stepped to the plate this season.
"This year, Kim took her game to another level," he said. "She worked hard and she's always focused. She knows how to shorten up her swing and adjust and that's made her a dangerous hitter."
The offensive stats also don't show what a superb defensive player Pierce became. Patrolling center field for the Storm, she threw out at least six runners trying to score on her this season, and there surely would have been more had the word not gotten out to "not run on Pierce".
"My arm accuracy," Pierce answered when asked which part of her game she improved on most this season. "I've always had a strong arm but never as accurate as it was this year."
"She worked on her throw and her defense and it paid off," Schaal said. "Her arm strength is so strong that her throw tends to tail but she worked on putting her throws on the money and she did that several times this year."
That strong arm may have come from playing baseball from the age or 4 until she was 10 and switched to softball.
"I played baseball with my brother and his friends until I was 10 and I was never the best. I hated that," said Pierce, who will study to be a social worker at Indiana State. "Then when I started playing softball I'd get yelled at for throwing the ball too hard."
Then came the move north.
Having grown up in the Tampa suburbs in an environment where she said, "every girl who played wanted to go to UCLA or Florida State," the move to South Elgin didn't come without some growing pains.
"The weather was the biggest thing," she said, noting that what she misses most about Florida are her mom, her brother and her friends. "It was like moving from California to New York. But team-wise it was kind of like travel ball because I got to face new teams all the time. There's really good teams in Florida and there's really good teams here. It's not that much different.
"Last year was me learning the girls. This year I stepped up and made captain and I just tried to help the younger girls come along. We really wanted to buckle down and win. But if you don't win you can't dwell on it. You just have to shake it off and learn from it."
Schaal knew what Pierce was going through when she first came to South Elgin.
"I made some moves when I was a kid and it's never easy," he said.
"But she made friends and found people she had things in common with."
Pierce, who said in her spare time she enjoys movies (Stomp the Yard is her favorite), and hanging out with her friends and her boyfriend, is looking forward to the future.
That will include the Super 60 all-star game, the Dave Fehlman Memorial Senior All-Star game on her 18th birthday, and then another summer with the Bartlett Silver Hawks travel team, which she helped lead to the ASA Northern National championship last summer.
Then, it will be on to Indiana State, where she hopes to help resurrect a Sycamores program that finished with a 20-27 record this season including a 10-15 mark in the Missouri Valley Conference.
She chose ISU over Butler because of the ambience she felt on her visit there.
"I met the girls and really liked them," she said. "I like being with a lot of people. The coach (Brenda Coldren) introduced me to everyone I needed to meet and they really convinced me to go there."
But the one thing no one around the Fox Valley needs to be convinced of is what a special talent Indiana State is getting, and what a special talent this area is losing.
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>All-Area Teams</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Cook County</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=298406"><B>Softball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298405">Softball captain: Nikki Goranson</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298398"><B>Baseball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298397">Baseball captain: Jon Carlson</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298403"><B>Girls soccer</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298402">Soccer captains: Laura Mayer, Mary Kubiuk</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298401"><B>Boys volleyball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298400">Volleyball captain: Chris Falknor</a></li> </ul> <h2>DuPage County</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=298388"><B>Softball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298392">Softball captain: Hannah Santora</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298388"><B>Baseball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298582">Baseball captain: Jack DeAno</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298391"><B>Girls soccer</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298394">Soccer captain: Leah Fortune</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298390"><B>Boys volleyball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298393">Volleyball captain: Joe Kelly</a></li> </ul> <h2>Fox Valley</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=298362">Softball captain: Kimberly Pierce</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298660"><B>Baseball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298356">Baseball co-captain: Brian Brauer</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298355">Baseball co-captain: Craig Lipp</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298658"><B>Girls soccer</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298361">Soccer captain: Cori Wronski</a></li> </ul> <h2>Lake County</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=298410"><B>Softball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298408">Softball captain: Olivia Duehr</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298407"><B>Baseball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298396">Baseball captain: Chas Evans</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298404"><B>Girls soccer</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298409">Soccer captain: Courtney Levy</a></li> </ul> <h2>Tri-Cities</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=298385"><B>Softball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298383"><B>Baseball</B></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298382"><B>Girls soccer</B></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>