Mills County Female Athlete of the Year

    Three years ago, you might say, Mindy Lorimor won one for the gender wars.

    A standout pitcher tearing up the Corner Conference and southwest Iowa batters, en route to the school’s first state tournament trip in four decades, Lorimor began hearing the whispers, mostly coming from the Knights’ baseball team.
    “We can hit her.”
    “It’s just softball.”
    So Lorimor did something about it.
    “I was sick and tired of them telling me they could hit off me,” Lorimor said.
    So Lorimor and the coaches set up a little scrimmage. The Knight baseball lineup would get a chance to hit off the young phenom, and Lorimor would get her chance to finally quell the whispers.
    “Graham Hillyard,” Lorimor said. “He was the only boy to get a hit off me. It took them like 45 minutes before they fouled one off.”
    Don’t feel bad, boys. Lorimor has made a habit of frustrating opposing batters in her sparkling five-year career.
    Lorimor is The Opinion-Tribune’s 2010-2011 Mills County Female Athlete of the Year. Lorimor is a two-time winner of the award given to Mills County’s top female athlete.
    A list of Lorimor’s career accomplishments reads like a laundry list of two athletes, not one. In all she earned 17 varsity letters in her career, five alone in softball where she was 112-29 in her carrer with a school-record 1,499 strikeouts, ranking her among the top 15 all-time in Iowa prep history.

    This season, Lorimor led the Knights with a 22-5 record in the circle, a .076 earned run average and a whopping 334 strikeouts to rank third in Class 1A. Perhaps even more impressive is Lorimor’s career strikeout record. Take a closer look and it reveals the right-hander struckout out 1,499 batters in her career but only struck out 49 times in five seasons as a hitter.
    Lorimor, who was in Normal, Ill. last week at nationals with her club team, the Omaha-based Frozen Ropes, laughed when told of her own nearly 30 to 1, pitcher-to-hitter strikeout ratio. As a hitter Lorimor led the Knights in hits, RBIs and home runs at the plate her senior year and is a career .403 hitter. She went 17 games into the 2011 season before being struck out and finished with four whiffs her senior season.
    Lorimor, who admits she wasn’t a very good hitter her first couple of varsity seasons, thinks her success on the mound has helped her eye at the plate.
    “I think knowing what pitch I’d throw next helps, but I also worked really hard with my hitting coach,” Lorimor said.
    Since her early teens, Lorimor has worked with a private pitching and hitting coach as well as her mom, Leonetta, also a stand out outfielder for the Knights in her day. Two of her brothers were athletes at Fremont-Mills and dad Matt was a football and basketball player.
    That lineage gives Lorimor a blue collar work ethic to go with a fiery competitive streak. She can get batters out with five pitches, including a fast ball that’s hit 64 on the gun, and never stops working to improve in every phase of her game.
    “They’ve (my family) always taught me I had to work for everything I have,” Lorimor said. “I’ve always wanted a lot out of myself so I’ve always pushed myself to get what I want.”
    Lorimor first stepped into the circle as a Glenwood Pony Leaguer in the fourth grade and some say she never left. She pitched for the Fremont-Mills Middle School team as a fifth grader and while she’s played a little outfield with her club team, she’s only played one position in her five year varsity career: pitcher.
    And Lorimor wouldn’t have it any other way.
    “I love being out there in control,” she said. “It’s me against them (when I’m pitching). I take everything pretty serious when I compete but obviously, I take softball a little more seriously than the other sports.”
    Lorimor’s other sports are volleyball and basketball, starting in both for three years, and track, where she was a standout high jumper.
    “When I really started playing volleyball my sophomore year I think it showed people I wasn’t just a softball player and I could play other sports,” she said. “My family wanted me to play other sports to keep me busy year round. They wanted to keep me and my brothers involved in a lot of sports. I also don’t like downtime. I get bored sitting at home. I don’t think not playing a bunch of sports was an option for me.”
    But not golf. She didn’t want to mess with her swing.
    “I’ve never golfed before,” she said. “My brother had some clubs and I hit a golf ball once and that was it.”
    Of all her 112 wins in the circle, its one of Lorimor’s 29 losses that stands out the most, ironically.
    That game was June 26, 2009. Lorimor battled Class 4A and state ranked Council Bluffs Lewis Central for seven innings until the Titans broke through to score on a Knight fielding error.
    Final score: Lewis Central 1, Knights 0.
    Lorimor fanned 12, allowed just one hit, a single and no earned runs, but more importantly the gangly sophomore learned a valuable lesson.
    “It showed me being from a 1A school it didn’t matter we were smaller. Just because they were a 4A school, we could still compete and we just had to keep working hard,” she said.
    Lorimor signed with SDSU last spring but will play for a different coach that she signed with next season. Jackrabbit head coach Joanna Lane resigned her post in July. after going 59-141 in four seasons.
    Kim Aggabao, an assistant coach at the University of San Diego the previous seven seasons, is the new head coach. While Lorimor has only talked  with her new head coach via email, she’s excited about the new coaching staff and her chances to help a young Jackrabbit squad that struggled with its pitching in the 2011 season.
    “I like the school and watched the team play. They don’t have a bad defense and they have some bats too so its basically their pitching,” said Lorimor. “Hopefully I can go up there and help them out.”
    Maybe the Jackrabbit baseball team too.