For the first time this season – and just the second since 2023 – Villa Madonna sophomore Cam Kratzer struck out last week against Cincinnati Country Day.
You notice it because it doesn’t happen very often. Kratzer’s .692 batting average ties her with Ludlow’s Shelby Ralston for best in the state, and she’s fifth in runs batted in with 37.
“I’ve been practicing consistently every week since I could remember, maybe eight years old,” Kratzer said. “And I have a great coach, Tony Fields, who really helps me with the mental part of the game.”
Fields maybe could praise Kratzer all day if you ask.
“She hits the ball as hard as anybody I’ve been around consistently,” Fields said. “She has the best eye of anybody I’ve been around. If it is a pitch she does not swing at, it is a ball.”
Fields said her pitch pickiness gets her in trouble in bases loaded situations; instead of swinging at a marginally bad pitch and potentially drive in two or three runs, she’ll work a walk for only one.
Hitting is half of Kratzer’s story – as the Vikings’ pitcher, she’s 6-4 with 94 strikeouts, 12 walks and a 2.40 earned run average this season. Over the last four seasons she has fanned 473 hitters and walked 95.
Villa senior catcher Rosemary Rice has been behind the plate for every one.
“She’s a formidable pitcher,” Rice said.
”She’s an even better human. Just her dedication to everything she does is just so insane, and I’ve loved seeing her grow up over the past four years.”
The right-handed Kratzer has been working on a screwball, which moves away from left-handed hitters; it’s her go-to pitch.
I think that’s the pitch that I have the most movement on; just recently it’s been working really well,” Kratzer said. “I’ve had a lot of strikeouts on it. I’ve been able to maneuver it so that it could get a strike call even without somebody swinging at it, which is kind of hard to do with a curved pitch, like a curveball or screwball.”
Kratzer said 2004 Olympic gold medal pitcher Jennie Finch-Daigle is her favorite player.
“I just thought she was really strong and (was) the first person that a lot of people knew that was a softball player,” Kratzer said.
Staying intact
Fields first saw Kratzer as a seventh-grader in 2021. When he took over from now-Ryle coach David Meier the following season, it didn’t take long to notice Kratzer’s bat speed – he refuses to throw batting practice to her without the L-shaped protective screen.
“The ball comes off her bat differently,” Fields said. “It gets on you in a hurry … I want to keep myself intact.”
To Kratzer, the mechanical and mental aspects of softball are equally important.
“That’s something that you need to not let affect yourself throughout the rest of the game, because at the end of the day, you’re not playing for yourself or the stats – you’re playing for your team and you’re playing to help your team as a collective to win and to have fun,” she said.
Kratzer, of Hebron, has had fun on the softball diamond since she was 8. She’s always played with older girls; there was no room on the Northern Kentucky Bandits’ 8-under team, so she was moved to the 10U squad.
“So I was exposed to higher up levels of softball from a pretty early-on age,” she said. “I played a bunch of other sports; softball wasn’t really my main focus until 8 years old.
Playing for stats
Kratzer believes many high school softball players care more for their individual statistics – an attitude that divides many teams.
“And I think it’s really important to have more reason than to play for your stats and for yourself,” she said. “It’s really important to play for your team and for the girls that are around you to really have fun.”
College softball’s increasing popularity – according to togethxr.com, 2.5 million watched last year’s Women’s College World Series, a 24% increase over 2023 (bit.ly/3YPepmP)– encourages Kratzer.
“I didn’t see much women’s sports,” she said. The fact that softball is getting pretty popular, I think, is great for our younger generations because they get to see women in sports … being seen as good athletic role models.”
Kratzer hopes to play Division I softball and study psychology (Tennessee is her favorite team) and later go to medical school.
“I really want to advocate for athletes’ mental health because I think that’s something that really needs to be looked at,” she said. “So, yeah, I want to go to med school and maybe open my own practice.”