Carmel Catholic's Elert elects to make this her final softball season

Studying statistics fascinates Carmel Catholic senior catcher Amanda Elert.

Not her own stats, mind you.

Not the 10 homers she belted as a freshman on varsity. Not the 10 she whacked last season. Not the Who Knows How Many she would have parked her sophomore year if not for an ACL injury that benched her the entire season. Not her 4 career grand slams.

And, no, while her .516 batting average (64 hits) last season is Fantasy League-like, she doesn't fixate on it.

"I like math a lot," Elert said. "I'm one of those dorks (laughing)."

More accurately, she's a hard-hitting softball player.

Next season, however, pitchers won't have to be on high alert if they see Elert.

One of the best sluggers in Lake County does not plan on playing college softball.

"She could have played at a lot of places," Carmel coach Shane Schueneman said.

Instead, Elert eyes attending a big university - Wisconsin and Michigan are on her radar - and majoring in stats. If she could do analytical statistics for a major corporations, that would be a home run.

"The dream job would probably be working in the front office of the Green Bay Packers," said Elert, who gets her Packers love from her dad, who was born and raised in Wisconsin and went to UW Madison.

Don't get Elert wrong. She started playing softball as a kid and once thought she might play the sport in college. But along the way, the recruiting process began to take its toll. She talked to Purdue coaches and some coaches at smaller schools.

Some of the fun, which is still the main reason why she plays today, was being sucked out of her.

"I didn't put myself out there as much as I probably should have," Elert said. "The recruiting process bothered me a little bit maybe, just because it's so intense. I felt that it took away from the game for me, so I tried to just focus on having as much fun as possible and doing the best I can."

The best part of it is, she's OK with her decision. And so are her parents, she said.

"I just realized that I wanted to focus more on my academics and finding a job and enjoying school," Elert said. "(College) softball just wasn't in the cards for me. I still love to play, but it was one of those things where I came to the realization that it wasn't going to work out for me."

Elert isn't the first and won't be the last high-profile athlete to give up competitive sports once he or she graduates from high school. Two years ago, Kathleen Felicelli graduated from Carmel as one of its best three-sport female athletes in school history. She could have played tennis, basketball or softball at the next level.

She passed on all of them, choosing to focus on being a student only.

Elert, who played varsity softball with Felicelli, took notice. Today, Felicelli is in the University of Michigan's business school and "kicking butt," Elert said.

"She's a huge role model for me, as an athlete and just as a person," Elert said. "When she decided not to play in college, I was surprised, as I think everybody else was. But (her decision) inspired me. You can still love a sport and give it everything you have and not play in college, and be totally OK with it."

So now it's March, and Elert is set to begin her final year of softball.

As any senior can attest, it gets emotional. And Carmel, which won 30 games last season, figures to have plenty of success again.

Elert's big bat and big leadership skills will be key. It's been more than two years since she underwent ACL surgery on her right knee, and last spring showed she hadn't lost her ability to pound a softball.

"Since the first day of tryouts and open gyms, I think I've been crying after every softball experience, just because it's one less time I'm going to have playing with these girls," Elert said. "Last year I was so excited to play and, if it's possible, I think I'm even more excited this year. We have a lot of really exciting underclassmen that have really stepped up and a really strong group of senior girls who I've been playing with for four years. It's going to be quite a ride."

The countdown has begun. Elert can do the math.

And if she keeps doing what she's been doing on high school diamonds, the stats fanatic will have some fun numbers to pore over at season's end.

jaguilar@dailyherald.com

• Follow Joe on Twitter: @JoeAguilar64