Kara Maiers living college softball dream at Kirkwood, soon at UNI

CEDAR RAPIDS — Kara Maiers laughed when she thought about her start as a pitcher.

She describes it like she could have rivaled Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn from the movie “Major League” before developing into an effective and efficient thrower for Iowa City Liberty and now a leader of Kirkwood’s pitching staff.

“When I was younger, I’d hit like five batters a game minimum,” Maiers said. “It has come a long way since I was little. It’s just that hard work I put into my pitching.”

Maiers, a University of Northern Iowa commit, owns team highs in multiple categories, helping the Eagles claim an Iowa Community College Athletic Conference title. She will step into the circle Friday when top-seeded Kirkwood hosts the NJCAA Region 11-A tournament, facing the winner of No. 4 Iowa Central and No. 7 Ellsworth.

“We’ve definitely been getting better as a team with the more games we’ve played,” Maiers said. “It’s gone well as we go along.”

Softball has been a love since she began playing rec league tee ball at age 5. Maiers has been attracted to the sport since her parents got her involved. The dream of playing college softball started early at Liberty and she made it a reality.

“I’ve just always been around it and since then I haven’t stopped,” Maiers said. “I knew I wanted to play in college my freshman year of high school. That’s when I started to get serious and looked into the recruiting process.”

Maiers has 13 victories in 21 starts and 24 total appearances. She is the lone sophomore to pitch and leads the Eagles with 134 2/3 innings, 16 complete games, a save, 151 strikeouts and a 3.00 earned-run average. She averages 7.85 strikeouts per seven innings pitched and has had a penchant for punching out batters, fanning 264 total in her final two seasons with Liberty as an all-state performer.

Maiers said she relies on Kirkwood Coach Eric Frese or catcher Peggy Klingler to call pitches. The execution, however, rests in her hands.

“I just go off what they call and knowing where that pitch needs to be placed to get the strikeout,” Maiers said. “A big key is to that is just throwing during the week to work on individual things that happened in games. Just work on things that you need to get better after a game.”

It’s not easy to reach an elite level that has afforded her an opportunity to continue at the NCAA Division I level for the Missouri Valley Conference champion Panthers. Her future has been formed by her past work, spending two to three days a week in the offseason throwing bullpen with Frese or Eagles assistant Alisha Frese. Other days are devoted to improving her velocity.

Maiers’ repertoire includes a fastball, changeup, drop, curveball, rise and a screwball. Her versatility has allowed her to keep batters off balance and she can throw any of them, regardless of the count. She doesn’t have to rely on a single pitch to get out of an inning.

“We rotate a lot,” Maiers said. “We throw different ones in that scenario.”

Kirkwood (38-15, 20-4) has an offense that supports Maiers and other pitchers, including Sailor Hall, who is 16-4. The Eagles score 7.83 runs a game with 199 total extra-base hits, including 88 home runs.

“I love it,” Maiers said about the run production. “If a team scores one run, I know we’ll go out and score two runs. I always have confidence in the offense.”

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