She’s just 115 lbs, but Belleville East’s Hemmerle packs a two-sport punch
As of last week, Olivia Hemmerle was set on going to college on a bowling scholarship.
The Belleville East senior averages 208 per string, having terrorized the pins for years at Bel-Air Bowl. Then, she had a change of heart, back to the sport she loves the most – softball.
While she has yet to decide on a college, there is certainly interest in the Lancers’ ace pitcher, who recently set the school’s all-time strikeouts record at 645. At just 5-foot-1, 115 pounds, Hemmerle continues to draw slack-jawed comments from anyone new who sees her on the mound.
“Where does she get all that power from such a small frame?”
“My favorite memory was her sophomore year, when she kind of came on the scene and nobody knew who she was, and I can remember hearing coaches from other teams, like ‘why can’t you hit this girl?,’” Belleville East softball coach Natalie Peters said. “And the kids were telling their coaches, ‘you don’t understand, the ball is moving all over the place.”
Hemmerle’s whirling right arm can definitely get the ball to the plate in a hurry – her fastball can hit the low 60s on a good day – but it’s the crazy spins she can put on the ball that most often leave struck-out hitters going back to the dugout feeling cross-eyed.
“She can break the ball in four directions, and diagonally too,” Peters said. “She just gets hitters so off balance with her breaking pitches.”
Hemmerle’s gaudy statistics from four years as a pitcher for the Lancers include: a 15-4 record for a team that entered this week at 18-5 overall. She was 24-9 her junior season, 24-8 as a sophomore and 2-0 as a freshman. She has seven no-hitters this season and 11 overall, both school records.
As a slapper, she’s no slouch at the plate either. She is fourth in school history with a .450 batting average and fourth in runs (109).
Hemmerle wants to pitch regularly as a freshman for a college team, which is why she’s strongly leaning to going to a junior college at first, then latching on with a big Division 1 school. Gulf Coast Junior College in Florida is one strong possibility, as is Kaskaskia in Centralia.
About that bowling scholarship: During an interview Wednesday, she still hadn’t informed the school she’d previously verbally committed, so she didn’t want to name the school. Suffice it to say, there is one disappointed bowling program out there.
Bowling is a Division 1 sport for women at 39 colleges in the U.S., and what makes Hemmerle’s prowess at the sport so unique is:“I didn’t really ever bowl much until the pandemic,” Hemmerle said. “But I guess I got good at is pretty fast. It’s like with pitching; I like being able to make the ball curve where I want it to go.”
As a young girl, Hemmerle used to wrap a softball in a sock and combine softball with bowling around the house.
“Until I broke some stuff in the basement one time and my mom said ‘stop doing that.’” Hemmerle said.
Hemmerle was a second-team Class 4A all-state selection for softball last year, and has a good chance to get on the first team this year. The Lancers will start regional playoff competition in about three weeks, and probably go as far as that right arm of Hemmerle’s takes them.
Hemmerle’s biggest pitching influence right now is Nebraska junior Jordyn Bahl, who has a 22-5 record this year and formerly pitched at Oklahoma, where she was 44-2.
“I watch her a lot,” said Hemmerle, who listed “eating out with friends” as her favorite off-field activity.
Beyond athletics, Hemmerle has an interest in forensic science for a potential career. That right arm will be kept plenty busy in the meantime.
“She’s too modest to say it, but her work ethic is second to none,” Peters said. “She’s just always pitching, to the point where we sometimes have to say to stop. I think the sky’s the limit for her. I think she’s going to keep getting better. Once she decides where she wants to go, it will be exciting to see where it takes her. We’re sure going to miss her, though.”
