Softball Player of the Year: Loyola recruit Schultz hits .544 for Oswego East, who match program win record

It’s a rainy summer evening, so Larry Schultz can guess where his oldest daughter is.

The garage.

Forever laboring at the game she loves, Emily Schultz’s commitment to softball knows no rainouts. The Schultzes’ three-car garage doubles as a practice area for Emily and her younger sister Ashley. A pitching rubber and pitching screen are there for Emily to throw, two tees and a bucket of balls to hit into a tarp.

“I think softball is what we breathe,” said Schultz, who just finished her junior year at Oswego East. “It’s big, our whole life.”

That dedication has paid dividends.

Schultz, a Loyola recruit, hit .464 and scored 47 runs as a sophomore, helping lead Oswego East to its first softball regional title. She hardly skipped a beat this spring.

She hit her first career home run in the Wolves’ first game. She was just getting started.

Schultz led the area with a .544 batting average with 13 doubles, four triples and scored 40 runs – all while striking out just three times in 123 plate appearances. She also drove in 32 runs and stole 18 bases out of the Wolves’ leadoff position, and went 10-7 on the mound. Oswego East matched last year’s program-record 22 wins.

The Record/Ledger Player of the Year, Schultz is only 28 hits away from Oswego East’s career record.

“I thought she improved in driving the ball and hit for a little more power,” Wolves coach Mark Green said. “Her ability to put the ball in play makes her a real challenge for defenses.”

Schultz, at 5-foot-11, hardly strikes the pose of a stereotypical little lefty leadoff hitter. She used to hit No. 2 or No. 3 in travel ball, but former Oswego East coach Laura Nussle put her at leadoff as a freshman.

It stuck. Schultz now leads off for her new travel team, the New Lenox Lightning, too.

“I love it,” Schultz said. “My mentality, I’m the first one to go up to the plate, my goal is to find a way to get on base and start the momentum. A lot of people used to think I was a slapper and I’d try to use my speed. Now they realize I’m probably not up there to slap the ball.”

Ironically, Schultz’s softball career almost ended before it really started.

She tried a range of sports when she was younger, from soccer, softball and basketball to gymnastics and dance. When she was 9 and her sister 8, the girls were told to pick a travel sport.

Ashley chose softball. Emily opted for soccer – until a free softball clinic at Oswego East gave her second thoughts.

“Emily came back from the camp and said ‘I don’t want to play travel soccer,’” Larry Schultz recalled. “She said ‘This is the real thing, not just rec softball.’ I don’t think Emily or any of us had any idea what we were getting into.”

She played 75 travel games as a 9-year-old, 90 the year after and didn’t complain a bit. Schultz clearly caught the softball bug.

When Schultz isn’t playing, she’ll sit and watch college softball games on her phone’s ESPN app for hours. The last three years, she and her dad started a tradition of attending NCAA regional games. That meant a drive to Kentucky this year.

“I love watching the pitchers, especially the lefties when I can,” Schultz said. “It’s a learning experience.”

She learns from the best in her backyard, too.

This winter she switched pitching coaches to Nancy Evans, a former All-American at Arizona who now works out of Plainfield. Evans deconstructed Schultz’s pitching motion to better utilize her height, and changed how she threw her movement pitches.

“Hopefully next year it will bring my pitching to the next level,” Schultz said.

At the plate, Schultz worked on driving the ball with hitting coach Kevin Sullivan at ESP Baseball/Softball Training.

She’s already looking forward to next spring, especially after losing in a regional final to West Aurora.

“The end didn’t go our way, but I think we improved as a team,” Schultz said. “It will help us a lot next year.”