Bring on the Olympians!

The four-year college career of Kaylene Fountain, like many players on the Area All-Star team that will face the U.S. Olympic softball team on Saturday, played out a long way from home.

Fountain, who pitched Lewis and Clark to state as a junior and into the regionals as a senior, played 3,000 miles away from home at Division II Coker College in Spartanburg, S.C.

She pitched, hit and left her name in several areas of the school softball record book.

“It was a long ways,” the recent graduate said of the separation. “I could only come home twice a year. It was a little hard my freshman year, but I got used to it.”

So much so that the biology major and chemistry minor is applying for dental school in Florida and Arizona.

“I love it,” Fountain said of the warm weather environs. “Snow is not so fun.”

Fountain had the distinction of pitching a no-hitter her senior year for LC in regionals and losing 1-0. Though her statistics are incomplete for the freshman season, what website totals there are show a 45-18 pitching record (this year she was 15-3 with a 1.53 earned run average). When she wasn’t on the mound she played right field and designated player and batted .365 for her career.

Heading into this season she was among the top 10 in season batting average, home runs and her 41 RBIs last season is third all-time. Her 1.18 earned run average as a sophomore ranks her eighth.

“My freshman year was my best, actually,” Fountain said. “I was all-regional as designated player.”

She’s not the only area product on the All-Star team to pursue their softball careers from afar.

Shadle Park four-year star Jessica Murray is at Delaware State University where the team had school-record wins with a 41-22 season. Murray led the team with 20 doubles and 41 RBIs while batting .320 in the Mid-East Athletic Conference. She compiled a 16-7 pitching record with a 1.24 ERA.

Shawna Foster from Post Falls, was the second leading batter for Cal State-Hayward with a .400 average while playing third base and shortstop, and led the 29-8-1 team with 29 RBIs. She hit 13 doubles.

Ferris’s JoAnna Gonzalez was named to the Horizon League all-newcomer team for Butler. The freshman infielder hit .286, fourth on the team, had a season-record 181 at-bats and tied for most hits with 58.

University’s Jen Shollenberger plays catcher at North Dakota State. She hit .294 for the 40-10 team.

Sandpoint product Logan Free, a freshman pitcher, started 17 games at Georgia Southern, went 8-8 with a 1.69 ERA. And Coeur d’Alene pitcher DeDe Dougherty plays at the University of Tampa.

While the others are a product of the boom in prep softball in the area, Fountain said she remembers that not many followed the sport when she was playing.

“Now it’s come so far,” she said. “It’s so much better.”

Those players have more college seasons ahead of them. Fountain’s career could be over this weekend in the doubleheader at Franklin Park that begins at 5 p.m. Hallmark Automotive Group is the major sponsor.

A game against the Olympians, she said, is the best possible ending.

“It’s probably the last game I get to play in,” she said. “You can’t beat that to play against the Olympic team. I know I probably won’t play much, but as long as I’m in the dugout and on the same field with them is exciting.”

Young coach will give it a go

Janessa Karstens, who pitched at Riverside, North Central and Mead during a prep career that ended in 1998, at age 24 just completed her second year as head coach at Edmonds Community College.

This weekend she’ll give the game a go again as a player on the Area All-Stars.

“I would guess the opportunity to play the Olympians would be the biggest reason,” Karstens said. “How exciting it’s going to be to play against them. It won’t come again.”

She, Whitworth’s Alana Klaus and Community Colleges of Spokane assistant coach Rikki Jackson are the “senior citizens” on the team.

“We better be able to bunt and run if we expect the girls to do it,” Karstens said, “and make sure we keep up with the young ones and don’t pull anything.”

Karstens pitched Mead to state her senior year, winning two games by shutout, though losing in the semifinals to Shadle’s Murray. She played two years at Edmonds and when the coaching job opened up, applied and got it.

“I thought I was underqualified but when it was still available in the fall (of 2002), I decided I’d give it a shot,” Karstens said. “I got the job in November and had six players.”

The next spring Edmonds finished second in its division and went to the league tournament. She was named coach of the year. This year the team finished second in its division again. Her two-year coaching record is 57-24.

Meanwhile, closer to home

Area All-Star collegians who stayed closer to home were not without their softball successes.

Shortstop Jackson, a basketball player who rekindled her love for the family sport at CCS, was a .417 career hitter with 13 home runs and a career-record 75 RBIs before becoming an assistant coach there.

Other CCS players on the team are Vanessa Shelton, who had a spectacular career in high school, but like Jackson originally opted for basketball before compiling softball stats similar to her coach, and Hannah Shelley, who hit 17 home runs this year.

Former CCS standout Holly Hayden from Shadle Park is now playing at Western Washington University.

Whitworth College had the best season in its Division III history thanks in great measure to pitcher-DP Klaus and centerfielder Patti Stranger.

Klaus hit .317 and led the team in home runs and RBIs, while going 15-3 on the mound with a 1.30 ERA and team high 140 strikeouts. Stranger scored a team-high 32 runs and was an outfield defensive catalyst.

Amanda Nilles, a North Central graduate and, with Gonzaga Prep’s Stephanie Stone, one of two locals at Seattle University hit .486 in league (.317 overall) as a freshman catcher, led the team in RBIs (30) and was second-team all-conference.

Tri-Cities well represented

Richland, long a hot-bed for girls softball, will have a pair of representatives against the Olympians, University of Oregon batting leader and third baseman Ashley Richards and University of Alabama-Birmingham freshman outfielder Holly Krzan.

Richards, a Richland High grad, batted .317 her junior year with eight home runs for the 28-19 Ducks.

Krzan, from Hanford High, was a member of the USA Junior National team and made the Conference USA all-freshman team.