Athlete of the Week Shelbie Krieger of Rootstown relishes 'having control over the game'

ROOTSTOWN — The bases are loaded and nobody is out against rival Mogadore, a leading contender to make state this year in Division IV.

It's "break glass in case of emergency" time for most softball pitchers.

Most pitchers aren't Rootstown senior Shelbie Krieger, the flame-throwing right-hander who has only grown more polished with time.

Krieger starts with heat on the knees for strike one, followed by a pitch just low, then another pitch on the knees that's fouled back before coercing a pop with a 1-2 pitch at the bottom of the zone.

For the next batter, Krieger goes with two low pitches followed by two high, capped by a wicked 1-2 inside rise to generate a swing and miss.

With two outs, Krieger falls behind 3-0 before getting a swinging strike on a rise and coercing an inning-ending chopper to third with a low pitch.

"It's definitely something I've been working on is just staying calm as a pitcher and just understanding that I can get myself out of the situations," Krieger said. "If I throw how I know how to throw, throw my rise ball, I'll get pop-ups, and just having confidence in myself is how I get out of those situations."

It is yet another clinic from the Record-Courier Athlete of the Week, a Miami (Ohio) commit who is leaving a legacy as one of the truly great pitchers in Portage County history.

"That's her leadership from the mound," Rovers coach Paige Byers said. "She has the experience, she knows that when we call a pitch in a location, she has room to work. Should it be on the plate? Should it be off the plate? How much movement should the ball have? And she's just exceptional at taking the situations and making it her own."

Pure precision from Shelbie Krieger

Shelbie Krieger lives between the knees and the dirt.

She has to, given Rootstown's home field with its fence that is entirely less than 200 feet from home plate.

"It definitely gave me things to work on," Krieger said. "The fence is so short that if I miss a pitch up and miss it down the middle, it's going over and batters are going to take advantage of it, so working that curveball low is something that it's hard to pull up and take out of the park."

Krieger has always been hard to hit, posting a 2.32 ERA and a whopping 211 strikeouts as a freshman. The following year, she lowered her ERA to an absurd 0.79, striking out 246 against just 31 walks.

Her numbers have remained brilliant — and she's only grown more efficient over time, including needing just 36 pitches to get through the first three innings against the Wildcats. She has a 2.64 ERA in 2024, despite facing a tougher schedule than ever, with 131 strikeouts against just 24 walks in 77 innings.

"I've seen her grow where she doesn't fully rely on her speed," Byers said. "It's a little bit more spin and then ultimately relying on her defense because she's picked up that the batters are going to put it in play, but she has a group of eight girls behind her who are going to do everything they can to help her out and make her successful."

The curveball is an essential part of Krieger's story, adding the perfect complement to her devastating fastball and rise.

"I had really good movement on it, better than the drop," Krieger said. "And then my curveball shoots up and down, so it's like it gets the best of both worlds."

Shelbie Krieger balances pitching with hitting

Krieger loves to pitch. From the moment she began pitching at the 10U level, her love of the game grew at an exponential rate.

"It was, like, this is something that I really like to do and I really enjoy it," Krieger said. "I like having control over the game, and that was something that I found [the] desire to do and that made me love the game more."

That said, Krieger is also savoring the other parts of her high school athletic career before focusing on pitching at Miami — like hitting, including two home runs in her last game against Mogadore and a .500 average with five homers this season.

"Hitting is just something that I just have to have fun with now because I don't have many more at-bats in my career," Krieger said. "Today was really the realization that, 'Oh, I just need to have fun and whatever happens, happens.' So it was just, like, I wasn't thinking in the box anymore and I was just swinging."

In the pressurized world of big-time softball, Krieger has learned to relish those breaks, whether it's in the batter's box or the volleyball court, where she proved one of the area's top hitters in a different sense.

"Volleyball is definitely my getaway sport," Krieger said. "It's, like, something where I'm not stressed out at all because that's not my main sport and that's not what I focus on, so definitely this year I just had fun and I love the volleyball team here. They're all great people and it's mainly just a sport where I can just have fun and be myself."

Krieger said she found a similar comfort at Oxford, her next destination.

"The first time I stepped on campus, I knew it was like I felt at home," Krieger said. "[It's] not something that I want to happen, but if I got injured, I'd be OK still going to that school and it was just, like, everything felt so comfortable there."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Athlete of the Week Shelbie Krieger of Rootstown softball