If you ask junior outfielder Katy Steele what she is most proud from her three years at Eastern, she will say her academic honors. But the fact that Steele currently leads her team in batting average, RBIs and slugging percentage has her coaches’ and team’s attention.

Steele’s latest success came last weekend in the Wolfe Sycamore Classic where she tied her career-high with four RBIs in the tournament’s first game against Indiana State and posted multiple RBIs in Sunday’s two wins against Western Illinois and St. Mary’s. The Wolfe Sycamore Classic was also the second time this season Steele has been named all tournament this year, her first was at the Holiday Inn Select Festival in Tulsa, Okla.

“Katy was always involved in sports,” said her father, Mike Steele. “From an early age, she was very physically strong, competitive and always worked very hard.”

Steele started playing softball at 6 years old.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long, long time,” Steele said. “Sometimes little kids grow up and want to be a princess or something, but I just wanted to play softball or basketball in college.”

And that is what she has been doing since she was recruited from an exposure camp in high school.

She has been Eastern’s utility player, and started in a different spot on the field each year she has played.

“Each season I’m working on a new thing,” she said. “Sometimes at practices I’m working a different position, it’s difficult to feel like you’re settled in and home in one position.”

She admits that working on different positions each day is difficult but has its rewards.

Steele entered Eastern as a catcher but was moved early in her first year to right field. Despite the change in scenery, she started 50 of the 52 games that season and even earned OVC player of the week on April 12, 2004.

Steele’s sophomore year she was moved again, this time to second base. Once again, however, she stepped up for her team and started all 47 games that season.

This season she is listed at first base and outfield and is enjoying success.

Steele says it is very different from other positions she’s played.

“I’m very happy in outfield,” she said. “It’s fun to make good plays in the outfield.”

Head coach Kim Schuette said, “It takes a special player and person to be able to play what ever position the team needs for that specific year only to change, yet again, the next year.”

Steele can never predict when it is going to be a good game.

“I think it just kind of happens in warm ups and stuff, you can tell when you’re swinging well, it’s such a mental game,” she said. “Every warm up I feel like it’s going to be a good day because it’s a mental game and I’m trying to win.”

She hopes to instill that attitude in her teammates as well, to show them by example that “if you work hard, good things will happen.”

She says the team is very close and the players are “all equals fighting for the same positions,” except when it comes to carrying equipment, she added with a laugh.

“Katy is a quiet leader who leads by example,” Schuette said. “She is someone the coaches and players can count on to do the right thing on and off the field. She is a fun person to be around in her own light, smiling care-free yet compassionate way.”

Steele’s goal for the season is to see her team reach the OVC tournament, something that the team has not been able to do since she joined.