Talking with Munster’s Kaylee O’Connell, she seems like a mild-mannered person.
Mustangs coach Jill Perez describes the SIU Edwardsville commit as “nice” and “friendly.”
“I love her,” Perez said.
But O’Connell, an infielder/pitcher who is one of three Division I recruits in the Mustangs’ junior class along with Indiana commit Ally Compton and Iowa commit Caroline Wendlinger, assumes a dramatically different persona between the lines.
“She has a different kind of game than the other two,” Perez said of O’Connell. “She competes the same. The results are the same. But they all tackle it in a different way.
“Kaylee is really hardcore. She’s the toughest. When you see her in the batter’s box or she’s on the mound, she just gives you this game face, and she’s really serious out there. It’s really fun to watch. We always say, ‘I wouldn’t want to pitch against Kaylee.’”
According to Perez, no one would want to challenge O’Connell.
“We always say, ‘If you have issues with somebody, Kaylee will handle it,’” Perez said. “She’s our toughest girl. She doesn’t take crap from anybody. That’s how she is as a teammate. She’ll stand up for anybody. Nobody’s messing with her team.”
Count sophomore Miah Almaguer among the teammates who appreciate O’Connell’s attitude.
“She’s definitely a leader on the field,” Almaguer said. “She definitely hypes people up when they’re down. She knows good words to say when people need encouragement.
“She’s definitely one of our best hitters and one of our best pitchers — and one of the loudest people to communicate on the field.”
O’Connell backs up her words with her performance on the field. She hit .337 with six homers, 19 RBIs and 15 runs scored for the Northwest Crossroads Conference champion Mustangs (26-6, 12-0) last season. She also went 11-1 with a 2.09 ERA and 109 strikeouts in 83 2/3 innings, which ranked second behind Compton’s workload.
As a freshman, O’Connell hit .333 with six homers, 30 RBIs and 16 runs scored and also went 9-0 with a 1.29 ERA and 77 strikeouts in 49 innings.
“Kaylee has it tough because she’s batted after Ally the last couple years,” Perez said. “I looked up her stats; she had 19 RBIs last year, and Ally’s never even on base because Ally hits so many home runs. Kaylee goes up there a lot with the bases empty because Ally just cleared them.
“It just makes her have a little of a tougher job to drive runs in and to have the same impact. But she’s been a huge impact player for us the last two seasons. She makes it work.”
Also important for the Mustangs, O’Connell is a versatile fielder.
“She’s really flexible,” Perez said. “She can play first. She can play third. She can go anywhere you want her to go and play it well — that’s awesome — and she’s obviously one half of our pitching duo, which we’re so blessed to have. A lot of schools don’t have two pitchers, and not only do we have two, we have two good pitchers. That’s definitely in the toolbox for us.”
O’Connell said she worked on various aspects of her game entering this season.
“I worked on my pitching a lot,” she said. “I was working on my ground balls. I was working on my hitting. Just overall everything — I want to improve on everything this season. I just want to be an asset to this team and be a good leader on and off the field for everybody this season.”
O’Connell announced her commitment to SIUE in late January.
“A bunch of weight lifted off my shoulders,” she said. “I wanted to get it done before high school season. Do well this season then next season and go off to college.
“It’s been a dream of mine to play softball in college.”
O’Connell, who also plays basketball for Munster, is ready to focus on this season. The Mustangs have high hopes. Last year, they won the conference title by three games but lost to Duneland Athletic Conference champion Lake Central in the Class 4A sectional semifinals. The sectional also includes defending Class 4A state champion Crown Point.
“People like Ally and Kaylee and Caroline, when we lost sectionals last year, they started prepping for the next season the day after,” Perez said. “Like, ‘What do we have to do?’ because we all knew we could’ve won that game. We’re just as good as everybody else.
“They really have put in so much work in the offseason to hopefully get us over that hump this year.”
O’Connell has an optimistic outlook.
“The juniors, we have two seasons under our belt,” she said. “We’re feeling really good. We’ve been working really hard this offseason. It’s been going well with all of us.
“Everybody listens. Everybody wants to be there for each other. We have a bunch of skill throughout the team, and everybody is just going into the season prepared. My mentality is right. Everybody’s mentality is right. We’re just going in strong and with our confidence up.”
