Inductees

She played on the dusty softball fields in and around Kansas City in her youth, learning from her four older softball sisters as well as her dad-coach.

And, like many athletes, Mandee Berg Holeyfield couldn’t help but watch other teams – that is, the better teams with slightly older athletes – and wonder, “What if?”

Turned out, she had the chance to answer that question after her summer travel team broke up just before high school. A coach of one of those teams, Dave Priddy, invited her on.

“It was the team I always looked up to when I started playing competitively,” Holeyfield said. “I learned so much from Coach Priddy and started earning pitching time as a freshman on a team with mainly junior and senior teammates.”

Call it the launching point to what became an incredible career, with the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Holeyfield with the Class of 2021.

A Blue Springs High School standout, Holeyfield went on to become a star pitcher for the University of Central Missouri from 1994 to 1997, delivering a wicked “rise” pitch and leaving a vapor trail – along with her name all over the record book.

Holeyfield was a three-time NCAA Division II All-American and a four-time All-Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) selection – including First Team All-MIAA in her junior and senior seasons. When she graduated, she held 10 UCM career records.

In essence, she climbed the ladder the right way.

“My four older sisters (Ticia, Kristy, Cambra and Tomasine) played softball. My dad coached one of the first competitive travel teams in our area, and I was the bat girl,” Holeyfield said. “He had two amazing pitchers, Sadonna Fincher and Lorri Brown, who I loved to watch. I started pitching when I was 6 years old with my sister, Kristy, catching me.”

Eventually, Holeyfield joined a Blue Springs travel team from several players out of a local league.

Eight of those girls, including Holeyfield, were in the Class of 1993.

“Blue Springs really churned out some great softball players,” said Holeyfield, an all-conference and All-Metro selection her senior year, when she was 11-3 with a 0.92 earned run average. “I don’t think the rest of the state really knew, outside of summer ball, that there were great teams in the KC area because we played spring softball and didn’t compete at state.”

However, UCM wasn’t even expecting her on the roster until three weeks before her freshman year. Holeyfield had visited Pittsburg State but, with a good pitcher there, she questioned if she would see the circle much. So headed to Missouri-Kansas City, only to learn that she lacked a math credit to be accepted.

Fortunately, her dad phoned UCM.

“It was a perfect fit,” Holeyfield said.

Holeyfield earned a starting pitching role her freshman season and never looked back. When she graduated, she ranked first career-wise in appearances (132), complete games (78), innings pitched (671.1), wins (85), win percentage (.794), saves (12) and lowest earned run average (1.26). She also held records for shutouts (23), strikeouts (639) and strikeouts per seven innings (6.67).

The Jennies won three MIAA championships in that time and advanced to three NCAA Division II Regional championship games. Her freshman year led to a fourth-place national finish and, by graduation, Holeyfield received the Vernon Kennedy Award as the 1997 UCM Outstanding Athlete, and was the MIAA MVP that year.

“My team was amazing and we didn’t know it,” Holeyfield said. “We worked at practice and hung out after practice. We started to know each other as friends, and it showed on the field. We truly enjoyed playing and seeing what we could do.”

She credits coach Rhesa Sumrell, too.

“She cared about us as people, not just players, and knew we needed to succeed in school not just on the field,” Holeyfield said.

Additionally, Holeyfield thanks her parents, Jim and Pam Berg, as well as sisters and brothers, Rusty and Jamie, for their support from the start. Her husband, Steve, and their son, Fletcher, have made her life even better as Holeyfield handles social work for the Independence School District.

Catchers Jenny Ward, Lisa Kraxner, Beth Savage and Julie Cobb made a huge difference, too.

“It is hard to grasp,” Holeyfield said of all the success. “Awards are very humbling, and they make me think more about the experiences I had more than the actual awards. It makes me think of the amazing teams I played on and all the fun times we had.”