Fortunately, the phone call came during a lull in the full-time job of raising her two preschoolers. Still, Katie Warrington Hugelmeyer almost didn’t answer it.
“It was so out-of-the-blue,” she says. “I was like, who is this number from Connecticut calling me?”
Turns out it was the commissioner of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC), calling to tell Hugelmeyer that she had been elected to the CACC Hall of Fame, thus becoming the first individual Wildcat to receive that honor. She joins the 2012 golf and the 2015 baseball teams as WilmU’s only representatives — so far — in the Conference HOF.
Hugelmeyer says she was only 5-foot-4 “in my cleats” when she pitched for WilmU from 2011 to 2013, but she looked like a giant to opposing batters. She was just Katie Warrington back then, and she brought a competitive fire and an arsenal of pitches to the circle: fastball, changeup, drop, screwball, and her favorite, the curveball.
That talent produced conference, regional and national accolades. She was a two-time CACC Pitcher of the Year (2011 and 2013) and a three-time First-Team All-CACC honoree. She was also a First-Team Daktronics All-East Region selection and earned honorable-mention All-America status from the organization in 2013.
Hugelmeyer set school records that may never be broken, including 645 career strikeouts — 137 more than the second-place Wildcat pitcher. Her other records: a career 1.09 earned run average, including two seasons with infinitesimal ERAs — 0.96 in 2011 and 0.99 in 2013; the single season record of 230 strikeouts, in both 2011 and 2013; the single game strikeout record (20), and 10.20 strikeouts per seven innings for a career.
She held opponents to a cumulative batting average of .180 as she went 45-22 and threw 23 shutouts (17 solo and six combined) during her career.
As a Sports Management major, the Townsend, Delaware, native also excelled as a student. She was a CoSIDA Academic All-American in three straight seasons, including first-team honors in 2013. She was named the CACC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year in both 2012 and 2013.
Hugelmeyer wore WilmU green and white for only three years because she spent her freshman year at Liberty University. The oldest in a tightknit family of three sisters and one brother, she says she was “miserably homesick” at the Lynchburg, Virginia, school.
Enter Wilmington University and Erin Harvey. Currently the school’s associate athletic director, Harvey was the Wildcat softball coach from 2007–2012, and she was well aware of Hugelmeyer’s achievements at Red Lion Christian Academy.
“She was without a doubt one of the best pitchers in the state in high school,” says Harvey, “so when we heard in the summer of 2010 that Katie was looking to return to a school closer to home, we reached out to her about coming to and playing for Wilmington.”
“No one is more deserving. She truly exemplified the term ‘student-athlete’ and she is a phenomenal representation to be the first individual from WilmU inducted into their Hall of Fame.”
— Erin Harvey
Hugelmeyer accepted the offer almost immediately.
“Wilmington was a perfect fit,” she says. “I loved it. I could live at home, and the softball was super competitive. A lot of the girls were ones I had played against in high school, and everybody’s family came to most of the games.”
Harvey credits the fireballing righthander with immediately making the softball program better.
“Right from the onset, she established herself as a dominating force in the circle,” she says. “A power pitcher, she threw with pinpoint accuracy and very rarely was she behind in the count, which exemplified the ‘get ahead, stay ahead’ philosophy when attacking opposing offenses.”
Hugelmeyer was as happy in the classroom as she was on the diamond. “I got a great education at Wilmington,“ she says. “I feel I had excellent teachers. One of things I liked is that a lot of them are not fulltime so what they’re teaching you at night is what they have done all day. They’re able to give real-world examples of what you’re studying.”
She continued her studies and earned an MBA with a concentration in Organizational Leadership in 2016. She then worked in human resources, including three years for the State of Delaware.
She married JP Hugelmeyer, a classmate at the University, in 2012. He is the manager of a chemical blending plant in Bear, while she has been “concentrating on being a mom” for the past few years.
“The kids will only be young for a short time, so I’m enjoying it now,” Hugelmeyer says.
Wrangling her two preschoolers has left little time to make the trip from the family’s Middletown home to watch Wildcat softball. “The games are usually in the middle of the day, and mid-day is naptime,” she says.
Hugelmeyer describes being elected to the CACC Hall of Fame as not only surprising but “very humbling.” WilmU will host the 2024 CACC Tournament in May, and the plan is to have her on campus during the Awards Banquet to be officially inducted.
“My whole family is coming; they’re very excited,” she says.
Harvey credits Hugelmeyer with being instrumental in laying the foundation for the successes the Wildcat softball program has achieved over the last decade.
“I am so grateful to the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference for bestowing this honor upon Katie,” she says. “No one is more deserving. She truly exemplified the term ‘student-athlete’ and she is a phenomenal representation to be the first individual from WilmU inducted into their Hall of Fame.”
— Bob Yearick