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GOLD & BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 4 77 BY STACY CLARDIE SClardie@GoldandBlack.com K im Schuette wants a steady incline instead of swinging highs and lows. It could take time. Purdue reached epic heights in Schuette's first season in West Lafay- ette last year with a pair of top-10 vic- tories — including over fourth-ranked Michigan, the first victory over that program since 2006 — but also crum- bled down the stretch, losing seven of the final nine games to finish below .500. "People talked about some of the big wins we had and I want to talk about the whole year we had instead of the flashes (of success)," Schuette said of her goals. A strong non-conference start should help it avoid a third consecu- tive losing season — it'd be the first time in the school's softball history if it happens — but it'd seem now is when the true rebuild begins. Schuette readily admits the first year in a new program is the honeymoon. Year 2? That's when the work usually starts of shaping a team, engraining philosophies, getting a coach's own re- cruits into the mix. That'd seem to be the case for the Boilermakers in 2015. Schuette was blessed with a se- nior-laden, experience-heavy roster last season and got ultimate offensive production out of it with four all-Big Ten performers, a group that could spray base hits or launch bombs, spur- ring the league's fourth-highest bat- ting average. Now, the Boilermakers are left with a largely unproven group. Only four position players return who played the bulk of the 56 games, and only three of those started at least 40 games. Senior Ashley Burkhardt, a first- team all-Big Ten selection last season, is the only returning player with sig- nificant at-bats who hit over .300 last season. Her 2014 totals in hits (62), home runs (10), RBI (43) and runs (33) actually were equal or higher than the combined 2014 total of the other eight projected starters for 2015. "We're going to play some really close ballgames against some really good teams. We're also going to play some really close ballgames against not very good teams," Schuette said a week before the season opened in ear- ly February. "We're just going to have to fight through things. That's what we've been preaching all year." The challenge is replacing the tal- ent lost. THE LINEUP CARD Purdue's projected lineup and rotation (last season's statistics) Players (bats) Pos. Avg. Maya Hughes CF N/A Mary Gooding 2B .217 Ashley Burkhardt 1B .346 Kaylah Hampton C N/A Kristen Hoppman RF .206 Paris Andrew SS .190 Alyssa Koorsen LF .333 Alex Whittemore DH N/A C.J. Parsons 3B .200 TOP RESERVE Katie Harrison DH N/A ROTATION W-L ERA Lilly Fecho (L) 21-16 2.89 Lexy Moore (R) 4-9 3.56 Gina Snyder (R) N/A N/A COACHES Head/pitching: Kim Schuette (second season) Hitting: Jason Dorey (second) Assistant: Megan Ciolli Bartlett (first) Unproven players key to program's rise Opportunity Knocks Purdue Now the challenge begins. In her second season as Purdue's head coach, Kim Schuette will have to mold a young, inexperienced roster into a competitive, steady program.