Megan Schmidt's bat stands out for Field softball

Megan Schmidt might have the sweetest swing in Portage County.

Put simply, it just sounds different when the ball hits the Field senior's bat.

And not just the home runs. Even Schmidt's grounders up the middle are loud.

"My hitting coach always told me, he goes, 'Calm but violent,'" Schmidt said. "So when you're in your stance, you have loose hands, you're loose, you got some rhythm in your feet and in your hands and then when you get the contact, it's 100 percent all the way through it. So I'm calm when I step into the box, and then when that ball's coming in, I get angry and I take it all out on the ball."

Field coach Beth Dyer has been admiring the results for three years now.

"She has such strength in everything she does," Dyer said of Schmidt. "I mean, she swings as hard as she can, and I think it shows when the ball and the bat meet. It's just a great sound. It's a beautiful thing to hear all the time."

If her swing, the perfect mixture of control and power, seems effortless, well, that masks the endless work the Record-Courier Athlete of the Week has poured into the game of softball.

That endless work ethic became obvious to Dyer in the summer of 2020 when Schmidt and her older brother, Mike, made their way to Field for her volleyball practices and his football two-a-days.

There was just one problem. Football two-a-days ran way longer than volleyball practices.

What did the then-sophomore do with all the extra time? She hit.

With Mike's two-a-days starting at 7 a.m., an hour before volleyball, Megan would hit for 45 minutes to an hour before volleyball. After volleyball, she’d have lunch and then return to the softball field and hit until Mike was done.

"I think that it shows her work ethic, her determination," Dyer said. "Most kids would probably be sitting in the car on their phone, but she's out there and she was hungry."

With two buckets of balls, a tee and a few other hitting tools, Schmidt worked on her lonesome to ensure she was ready when she finally got the chance to take the field for the Falcons.

"I aspired to be Alexsa Hurd when I was younger," Schmidt said. "Like, when I was a freshman and I saw her as a junior, I'm like, ‘Wow, this girl is great.’ I'm like, ‘I want to be able to hit like her, I want to be able to play like her.’"

Schmidt quickly saw that to play like Hurd, she needed to work like Hurd. Hence those afternoons hitting alone at the softball field while her brother worked away on the gridiron.

Schmidt missed out on her chance to play for Dyer and alongside Hurd as a freshman due to COVID. As a sophomore, she got that chance, as Dyer put Schmidt right in at second base.

"I absolutely loved it because they took me right under their wing right when I got up to varsity," Schmidt said. "Haley Hopkins and Alexsa, they helped me through the whole thing, like through the physical game, through the mental game, they were there for it all."

Things were always going to be different after the 2021 season. Hopkins, Hurd and the Class of 2021 were leaving. The Falcons, for the first time in four years, were looking for a pitcher.

And then came another obstacle when Schmidt tore her ACL in basketball. The next weekend, she had a softball tournament and played several games. On a torn ACL.

She hit the ball just fine. There was just one problem. It was either a single or a homer. She couldn't run.

And, of course, that weekend playing softball had the inevitability of sunset. Night was coming. Schmidt was going to have surgery.

"The recovery for an ACL is just brutal," Schmidt said. "It is god-awful. It's physical therapy two or three times a week for a consistent nine to 10 months. It was just a lot. It really is."

Making matters worse, Schmidt had to wait. Dyer was adamant that Schmidt not rush back into the lineup and risk further injury. Schmidt is grateful for that now, but it wasn't easy back then.

"She was going to be in the lineup last year; she knew that," Dyer said. "What we needed was a healthy Megan, so however long that was going to take in preseason was fine by us."

The crazy part is that despite missing much of the preseason, Schmidt was dominant as a junior, immediately playing her best softball.

"It's like she never missed a beat," Dyer said. "She looked natural, she looked comfortable, and she just has a natural gift for hitting."

That gift was evident in last week's sectional final against Girard. There Schmidt stood chatting with sophomore Tia Ulrich with a runner on second in a tie game in the bottom of the eighth.

One of the two was going to win the game, they agreed.

"I'm like, ‘None of us want to be done yet. We just got in the playoffs. We want to keep going. We want to go far like we have in the past,’" Schmidt said. "So I just went up there, I had the mentality that I had to get a hit, I just had to put the ball in play and make it on base somehow."

That pressure of getting back to district didn't bother Schmidt as she delivered a walk-off single. That pressure is part of playing softball for the Falcons.

Schmidt noted that Dyer talks going into tryouts about the importance of maintaining Field's stellar softball reputation.

Schmidt watched Hurd lead the Falcons.

Now, the Notre Dame College commit is savoring every last moment of her turn.

"[Dyer] is like, everybody plays their best game against you, and we love getting people's best," Schmidt said. "So it puts a lot of pressure on you, but it's good pressure because you're known for playing for a great program."