Kristina Donaldson has been putting on quite a show during her Naperville North career.
The senior center fielder has been a varsity mainstay since she was a freshman and is in her second year as a captain. But as good as the Washington University commit is on the field, her future appears even brighter off it.
Donaldson, who scored a 33 on the ACT and a 1550 on the SAT, plans to major in biomedical engineering.
“I really like biology and physics and those sorts of classes, so I’m in STEM mode,” she said. “Biomedical engineering is kind of interesting to me because I like the idea of designing things, stuff like prosthetic limbs.
“I just think the idea of designing something that can help people is cool.”
Naperville North coach Jerry Kedziora is amazed by Donaldson’s academic achievements.
“She’s off the charts,” Kedziora said. “Being a science teacher myself, even though I never had her in class, I can’t wait to get to follow her. Doing the bioengineering stuff, it’s going to be fascinating to see what she does.”
Donaldson said she gets her academic interests and athletic ability from her father, Dave, who played baseball in high school.
“My dad is a software engineer, and he’s always pushed the STEM mindset, so I did a lot of math things when I was younger,” Donaldson said. “I’ve always liked math, and from there, taking the classes that I’ve taken in high school, it just furthered that interest.”
While Donaldson is rather shy about talking about her academic success, her teammates are not.
“She’s extremely smart,” Naperville North senior pitcher Charlotte Chelich said. “She took calculus last year and statistics this year. I always tell her she takes the baby classes, but she’s a genius. You can tell she’s a very smart person and very generous.”
Donaldson’s generous amount of talent has helped the Huskies (16-6, 9-0) attain unprecedented success. They beat Metea Valley 7-3 on Monday to clinch the DuPage Valley Conference championship outright. It’s the first time they have won back-to-back league titles.
Chelich, a Truman State recruit, and senior Shayna Woolwine, a Winona State recruit, are one of the best pitching combos around. But Donaldson’s contributions with the glove — she has made only one error — and bat have been vital.
“She’s been very important, especially directing the outfield this year because we lost a lot of our outfielders from last year,” Chelich said. “Now we have younger players, and she’s such a good leader to them, and then she’s such a power hitter.”
Indeed, Donaldson is batting .425 with seven doubles, six home runs, 23 RBIs and 21 runs. She has an OPS of 1.334.
“It’s just amazing to be able to do what she is doing,” Kedziora said. “She has such a great work ethic. When she’s doing a drill, she doesn’t sit around and talk to everybody. She gets to work, and she’s conscious of the stuff that she’s doing, and I think that goes with her organization of how she approaches school and how she approaches softball.”
After hitting in the leadoff spot the past two seasons, Donaldson has been moved to the No. 3 hole, between Chelich and Woolwine. Kedziora made the switch to prevent teams from walking Chelich, and it has worked. Junior right fielder Olivia Hebron has performed well as the leadoff hitter, reaching base at a .450 clip and scoring a team-high 28 runs, and Chelich has walked just three times while hitting a team-best .615.
“It hasn’t been too much of an adjustment,” Donaldson said. “Olivia does a really good job of getting on base, and I think I’ve just been focusing on hitting the ball, not trying to do too much, and let it come naturally.”
Donaldson has done a lot for Naperville North and will try to do more for society in the future. She and Kedziora don’t talk much about the particulars of biomedical engineering, but perhaps they will someday.
“She’s pretty advanced (compared to) what I’m teaching, so we don’t go over it too much,” Kedziora said. “We keep things light.
“But when she’s going through college and hopefully comes back and visits, we can talk about some of the crazy stuff she’s doing. It’s going to be awesome.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.