Newfane’s Kimberly Schmitt staying busy while starring on the diamond

KENMORE — Kimberly Schmitt never stops moving. She goes and goes and goes. She is so busy in fact that it begs the questions, when does she get to be a kid?

But busy is how she likes it. Busy is practically the senior’s middle name.

She plays volleyball, swims and plays softball for Newfane High School while playing trombone at an all-county level. She also works on her family’s farm where they have a dog, 45 chickens, four emus and five goats. She does all this while maintaining a 4.0 GPA at school.

“Honestly, being busy is who I am,” Schmitt said. “I love to be busy … All my best friends play the sports I play. So I get to have fun every single day while working hard.”

Her work on the family farm keeps her plenty busy outside of school and sports. She wakes up early and when she gets home from school she takes care of her dog and then the farm animals and has to make sure her goats have not escaped. When she finishes she goes to practice for one of her three sports.

It is a work ethic that has been noticed by her head coach Craig Isaacson and it rubs off on her teammates. Especially as one of the Panthers' two seniors this year. Schmitt is her team’s captain this season.

“Her work ethic definitely impacts others on the team to the point that other players have started to ask for additional reps,” Isaacson said. “When they make mistakes in practice, they ask for another ball.”

This season, Schmitt is hitting .400 with two home runs, 18 hits and 14 runs scored. While her average has taken a hit from where it was last year’s .736, Schmitt has found her way to make an impact this year.

It helps that she has found her way on base thanks to walks and hit-by-pitches at a high rate this season.

“(Her best skill is a) combination of hitting the ball well, hitting the ball deep and being our anchor at first,” Isaacson said.

Although her team is 2-12, this season has not been challenging for the senior mentally. It is an attitude that persists when she might not have a great game at the plate.

It is a mentality that has come from her background as a swimmer where she keeps going whether or not her time is what she wants it to be. Whatever happens on the diamond, she forgets about it and keeps going.

She will be using that mindset in the fall when she will be continuing her volleyball and softball career at Hilbert College. As a member of the volleyball team, Schmitt will be an outside pin hitter while on the softball team she will be playing first base and pitching.

“It means so much to me because I’ve worked so hard my whole life,” Schmitt said. “No one sees the extra hours you put in. No one sees the extra reps, every single one. There are times I come home from games, even this season, and I go out with my dad or my brother, I play catch, I pitch, I hit.”

It did not take much for her to decide she wanted to attend the Hamburg-based school. All it took was a phone call with the school’s softball coach Dan Opera, who discovered her by accident.

The two spoke on the phone for 45 minutes, and when they were done, Schmitt called her mother and told her she needed to tour the campus and see what it had to offer.

Before she toured the campus with Opera, Schmitt reached out to Hilbert volleyball coach Calvin Crosby and the two spoke about trying to do both sports. After touring the campus, she fell in love and knew the school was the place for her. She knew she had found her home the next four years.

As she looks ahead, the first baseman does not know exactly what her potential is but she knows that if she keeps her head down and works hard.

“If I continue to show up each day, even in the off hours, work hard,my potential’s endless,” Schmitt said. “That’s how it is for everyone. Hard work beats talent every single day. If you go home after practice and you’re one of those kids who hit the ball more, you field the ball more, you even throw it into a net, hit the ball into a net, you’re going to get better every single day.”