By Dylan Wallace
During her freshman year, Seymour’s Sydney Stewart began playing travel ball with Indy Crush, based in Indianapolis.
It was during that first year with the Crush that she realized she wanted to play softball in college.
Fast forward three years, and Stewart was at a camp in Evansville about a month and a half ago, competing in a tournament there with the Crush.
The coaches from Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, were in attendance.
“We got to get to know each other pretty well, and we got to work with them,” Stewart said. “I already started to like it there.”
Stewart was already familiar with the university because two of her aunts attended Mount St. Joseph and got doctorate degrees.
The conversation between Stewart and Mount St. Joe continued from that point forward. Just this past Monday, Stewart took her official visit to the campus, and on the spot, she decided to commit.
Later that night, Stewart tweeted out a picture of herself on the Mount St. Joe softball field along with the two coaches and said, “I am so excited to announce my commitment to further my athletic and academic career at Mount St. Joseph University! I want to thank all of my coaches, teammates, family and (Coach Beth Goderwis and coach Deedee Davis Morris) for this opportunity and experience! Go Lions!”
Stewart said her visit Monday was a great experience and that Goderwis and Davis Morris are “very personable coaches.”
In addition to playing softball at Mount St. Joe, Stewart will be studying physical therapy, just like one of her aunts did at the same school.
The PT program will be an additional three years after Stewart completes her four-year undergraduate studies.
“Anywhere, I can fulfill physical therapy in a doctorate program, and Mount St. Joe was the place for that,” Stewart said.
The soon-to-be senior at Seymour High School has been playing catcher for the Owls the past couple of seasons. Stewart expects to be in the same role at Mount St. Joe.
The Lions currently have a junior catcher, who will be a senior when Stewart is a freshman. Stewart believes she’ll be next in line to assume the starting catching role in Cincinnati.
Seymour head coach Jerry Burton talked numerous times throughout this past spring about how valuable Stewart is behind the plate being a vocal leader for her team.
Stewart credits Chaunsey Bell, a former catcher at the University of Alabama, for why she learned the catcher position so well.
“She’s been a really good help in gaining confidence and gaining skills and talking behind the plate,” Stewart said. “I like being behind the plate and getting to see the whole field and letting the infielders know what’s going on at all times.”
Seymour is fresh off of a season in which it won a share of the Hoosier Hills Conference title but fell just short of reaching the sectional championship game.
As Stewart heads into her final campaign with the Owls, she and her teammates hope they can obtain the same type of success.
“I think that we have goals for our pitchers to step up. We need some dominating pitchers. We need some timely hits and stringing stuff together,” Stewart said. “We want to win the conference again and get to sectional and go farther.”
Stewart has been working on her hitting this offseason and gaining more confidence in that aspect of the game, hoping her batting becomes more consistent.
She also has been working with a lot of pitchers at Indy Crush, trying to get their confidence up.
Stewart has nothing left lined up for the rest of the summer, but Indy Crush will be competing in some fall tournaments during the first week of September.
But Stewart is just happy to be done with her college decision as she heads into her final year of high school. A girl from Columbus North will be in her class going into Mount St. Joe, and a couple of Stewart’s teammates from Indy Crush will be freshmen for the Lions this fall.
“I was very excited,” Stewart said on committing. “It’s such a relief to finally be over with the whole recruiting process, and I know that I’ll do well at Mount St. Joe.”