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Catcher's Grit Shines in Health Scares
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
April 9, 2018
RICHMOND – Evelyn Swantek couldn’t have imagined what her day would be like when she awoke on Aug. 8 of last year.
Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt on a seasonably warm summer morning, Swantek went for a mile run as part of the training that all varsity volleyball players at Richmond High School were expected to complete.
Near the end of her run, Swantek noticed something wasn’t quite right. A bit of fatigue, yes, but it was more than that. She went home and told her father, Dave Swantek, that she was going to take a nap. But when she awoke, her world changed dramatically.
“It came out of nowhere,” she said. “I woke up and couldn’t talk. Part of my face went numb and I couldn’t see out of my right eye. And my neck was really big.”
A bit dazed by the sudden physical change of the youngest of his three daughters, Dave Swantek drove her to the hospital not knowing what was wrong.
Thankfully, Dave was home on a vacation day while his wife, Julie, was at work. He was attending to a couple of odd jobs around the house when his daughter came home.
“Evie came in and said she was tired, and wanted to take a nap,” he said. “She got up and came downstairs; immediately I knew something was wrong. It’s something, as a parent, you just don’t want to see.”
The Swanteks arrived at McLaren Hospital in Mount Clemens and, after the diagnosis, were told that Evie had developed blood clots – one in her throat and one in her face, and that she had suffered a Transitory Ischemic Attack (TIA), commonly known as a mini-stroke.
Dave Swantek said the doctors immediately took his daughter off the blood-clotting medication she had been taking since January.
On New Year’s Eve, 2016, Evie experienced abdominal pain while celebrating the arrival of the New Year with family members. She was taken to McLaren Hospital, where exploratory surgery was performed and she was diagnosed with endometriosis. Endometriosis is a condition in which a layer of tissue that normally covers the inside of the uterus grows outside of it. One of the main symptoms is pelvic pain.
At the time, the Swanteks never gave it a second thought. Evie took medication, didn’t miss a day of school and continued to compete on the varsity basketball team. After that season ended, Evie made the varsity softball team for the first time and was named the starting catcher by coach Howard Stuart. Richmond won the MHSAA Division 2 title in 2016, and the Blue Devils reached the championship game again in 2017 only to lose to Ida, 8-4, in nine innings in the Final.
Seven weeks later, the Swanteks’ world turned upside down. And it would take nearly three months for their world to be turned right side up.
“It was a warning sign,” Dave Swantek said of the blood clots and the mini-stroke. “The medication she was on was clotting. Then they took her off of it. It gave us time to find out what was wrong. And this went on for a long time.”
Not knowing the exact cause and the proper medication was disconcerting to the Swanteks.
“They had no clue,” Evie said. “I kept asking (the doctors) what’s wrong. They said they didn’t know yet. I was sitting in the hospital just thinking, this is scary.”
For about a six-week period, Evie was in and out of the hospital three or four times – doesn’t recall the exact number. The illness prevented her from competing in volleyball and basketball, and for a senior, that can be difficult to handle. She also can’t give the exact number of days of school she missed, but she does remember missing a couple of football Friday nights, which did not sit well with her. Evie was able to attend Homecoming, however.
All during this time one thought, one goal, weighed heavily.
“Not knowing if I was going to play softball was hard,” she said. “I kept asking the doctors, ‘Will I be able to play?’ That’s my favorite. I’ve been playing since I was 7. I’ve been playing travel (softball) since I was 8. And I’ve always been a catcher.
“It was hard on my parents, too. It was frustrating.”
This frustration and uneasiness came to a head one evening while Evie was watching television.
“I started to have these chest pains,” she said. “I’m lying on the coach, and it’s starting to hurt real bad. And I have a high threshold for pain. I broke my wrist (glove hand) and played three more tournaments, so it has to be a lot of pain for me to do something about it. I had had these chest pains before, but this time it was really bad. I rolled up into a fetal position, it was so bad.”
Said her father: “I remember that. I rushed to (McLaren) hospital and the people in the emergency room looked at us and it was like, what now? It took them three days to find out. The doctors kept saying they don’t know.”
Dave Swantek said the doctors changed medication, from one blood thinner, taken orally, to one that was administered intravenously. In the end, that did the trick. Evie said she’s feeling better since the switch was made and the application, after a couple of tries, became second nature. She’s able to administer the shots by herself.
Dave Swantek gushes when he talks about how well his daughter has handled this situation. He said the doctors who have either diagnosed or treated Evie have offered to have a psychologist meet with her in an effort to make sure she recovered mentally from the ordeal.
“The coping mechanism she has displayed is amazing,” he said. “She’s been amazing through it all. She lost two sports – two sports she played her whole life. She loves volleyball and basketball. There were times they were throwing all kinds of medication at her, trying to find out what works. When they can’t tell you what’s wrong with your daughter, it’s a challenge. It was a rough time. She did a wonderful job.”
There is a happy ending. Evie is playing softball and expected to be one of Richmond’s top players. She’s down to one shot per day and she’s hoping, after she and her parents meet with the doctors April 26, that she will be taken off medication.
And her future looks bright on the diamond. She’s received a scholarship to Oakland Community College where one of her sisters, Ally, a sophomore, is a student.
“I’ve had the best support system you could imagine,” Evie said. “My parents, my family, have been so great. It’s been very comforting.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Richmond catcher Evie Swantek frames a pitch during last season’s Division 2 championship game. (Middle) Swantek powers through a swing during the Final. (Below) The Swantek family: parents Julie and Dave and daughters Emily, Ally and (far right) Evelyn. (Family photo courtesy of the Swantek family.)
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Senior Ace Adding to Whiteford Legacy
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
May 17, 2019
OTTAWA LAKE – You could call Lindsey Walker a 10th-year senior for the Ottawa Lake Whiteford softball team.
Walker is one of seven seniors on a 20-3 Bobcats softball team that has climbed to No. 2 in the coaches association Division 4 rankings and is a win away from clinching its second Tri-County Conference title in three years.
The pitching ace began learning the finer points of fast-pitch softball from veteran Whiteford coach Kris Hubbard when she was in the second grade.
“I would come in the mornings for pitching lessons,” Walker said. “I’d show up before school, we’d go in the high school gym while she was coaching JV girls basketball. She’d walk back and forth and teach me how to pitch at the same time.
“She taught me the basics, how to warm up and some of the mechanics of pitching. It was all new to me then.”
With Hubbard’s help, Walker has blossomed into a star in the circle for the Bobcats. She’s already holds Whiteford career records for games pitched, decisions, innings-pitched and wins (82) and she’s within a couple starts of setting the Bobcats’ record for strikeouts. She’s also an outstanding hitter and has made a remarkable impact on Whiteford’s hitting record book, too. She is the Bobcats’ all-time leader in at bats, hits, doubles, RBI and home runs.
“She’s going to have a lot of records,” Hubbard said of the 5-foot-10 Walker. “She’s a good player.”
Besides pitching mornings for Coach Hubbard, Walker began playing travel softball at a young age. When she was still in elementary school, Hubbard invited her to be a manager for the varsity. It’s a time-tested method for Hubbard, who has coached the Bobcats for all 41 years of its softball existence. She brings on multiple managers to begin training them for the varsity squad at a young age. By the time they reach the varsity as a player, they are engrossed in the program, knowing the ins and outs of how things are done the Bobcat way.
Walker has been solid all four of her seasons in the circle, but there was a time when she considered giving up pitching.
“I was in the fifth grade, and I was about to give up pitching,” Walker said. “I couldn’t throw a strike. Everything was crazy. She just told me to keep going and that I would get my location, and my accuracy was going to come with time. She pushed me.”
Walker batted .429 as a freshman and hit .371 as a sophomore when Whiteford reached the Division 4 championship game. She hit .513 last year with eight home runs and 14 doubles. The Bobcats made it to the Quarterfinals. Although she won 15 games as a freshman pitcher, it was her sophomore year in which she showed her dominance – winning a school-record 29 times.
Walker recently committed to play in college at Ave Marie University in Florida. She wasn’t sure she wanted to pitch in college until just before this softball season began and she realized if she didn’t, this would be her final season of the sport.
“I just don’t want it to end,” she said. “I realize how much I would miss it.”
This season the Bobcats have steadily climbed up the state rankings as the senior-laden team looks to embark on yet another tournament run under Hubbard. The Whiteford coach already has announced this year will be her final one as the Bobcats’ head coach. She has more than 855 wins and three MHSAA Finals championships with six title game appearances during her career.
Senior Karsyn Berns-Moore leads the team with a .561 average and has six triples. Baylee Baldwin is hitting .455 with 36 runs scored, and Milly Iott is hitting .434 with 10 doubles and 27 RBI. Pinch-runner deluxe Anna VanBrandt has scored 35 times, one off the team lead, despite having just eight at-bats.
“You can do so much with speed,” Hubbard said.
In the circle, Walker is 15-3 with a 1.62 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 95 innings pitched. She’s also hitting .434 with six home runs and 36 RBI. Other seniors on the team include Madison Durden, Jessica Link and Katie Lipp. All seven seniors on the club’s roster are four-year regulars.
Hubbard credits the deep crew of assistant coaches for helping the Bobcats this season. That includes former Whiteford baseball coach Matt VanBrandt and his wife, Audra VanBrandt, a former Temperance-Bedford softball coach; ex-Whiteford volleyball coach Sandy Clark and the newest member of the Whiteford coaching staff, John Morningstar. Morningstar coached Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central to three straight Division 3 championships from 2015-2017 and became an assistant at Whiteford this year.
“It helps when you have so many former head coaches,” Hubbard said. “We are really hitting the ball this year.”
Hubbard said the seniors are still trying to get better.
“This whole senior class always wants to get better,” she said. “You usually don’t have that. Usually kids lose interest over the year. Even now, those seniors, when I send out a text saying what day I’m going to be at the school, my phone blows up. They know. They still want to get better. They’re not going through the motions. They are working on the batting tee or the catch net. They are driven, and they keep getting better. It’s nice.”
Walker said Hubbard never forgets to tell her players – and dugout full of managers – to have fun.
“She teaches you a lot about life and softball,” Walker said. “She lets you develop your own skills, but she pushes you. Some coaches just want to win. She always wants us to have fun first.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Ottawa Lake Whiteford’s Lindsey Walker unloads a pitch this season. (Middle) Walker, a four-year varsity senior, will attempt to lead the Bobcats to their second Division 4 Final in three years. (Photos by Cari Hayes.)