Hall of Fame
Success in sports came early for Shally Lundien.
"I was the first girl wrestler in the area in the late 1970s, early '80s," she said. "I wrestled the boys in various tournaments and won third place in the state meet in my weight class when I was in third grade."
Her primary sport later changed to softball, and she became an outstanding player and coach. That earns her a spot in the Class of 2024 for the Joplin Sports Authority Hall of Fame.
Lundien, a 1991 Carl Junction High School graduate, became an All-American at both Crowder College and Missouri Southern. She also played for the USA Softball Junior College team that competed in the Canada Cup in 1993.
In 1995, she started every game as Missouri Southern finished 45-8 and advanced to the regional tournament before being eliminated.
Lundien batted .430 that season and led the team with 39 runs, 74 hits, 47 runs batted in and seven triples. She also was second with 18 doubles and struck out just three times all season.
She picked up a lot of hardware that season, being named the MIAA Player of the Year, Missouri Southern Female Athlete of the year and the Ken B. Jones Award as the MIAA's top female student-athlete. She also was an academic all-American at MSSU as a biology major.
Lundien learned her softball skills through youth leagues and travel teams, as the high school had not started its softball program.
"When I was real young, I played league ball in Carl Junction," she said. "Then, as we got older, we had one travel team in the MKO (Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma) League. Once that kind of fell apart, we turned into the Webb City A's. It was mostly Webb City girls, and I played and there was Joplin and Neosho girls and we traveled."
Playing travel ball is how Crowder made connections with Lundien. After two years with the Lady 'Riders, Lundien transferred to Missouri Southern and played for coach Pat Lipira.
"Honestly, I wanted to play at University of West Florida because I wanted to be a marine biologist," Lundien said. "But they didn't really have anything to offer me. Of course, Coach Lipira, my first year at Crowder, was saying, 'I'm interested again.' So, it was kind of a running joke that I could learn to be a marine biologist in the swimming pool at Missouri Southern. I was just a biologist instead."
After her playing career, she compiled a 120-120 record in five seasons as head coach at Pittsburg State.
She went back to school for her education degree and coached high school teams at Frontenac (Kan.), Carl Junction, Seneca, Carthage and Joplin. She had a second-place state tournament finish at both Frontenac and Seneca.
Today, Lundien is Director of Admissions at Crowder.
"Back to my home starting grounds," she said. "My office that I work in was a parking lot that we practiced on when I was here as a player."
