UWEC Athletics Hall of Fame
Pitcher Heidi Bergstrom represents one half of the battery from one of the two most successful eras in Blugold softball history. The catcher was Hall of Famer Lisa Schueller. Bergstrom played for JoEllen Bailey and Deb Steward from 1997 through 2000 when the team compiled a 144-53 overall record, won three conference tournament championships, amassed a 27-5 regular-season conference record and made four NCAA tournament appearances, finishing fourth in both 1999 and 2000. The 1998 and 1999 teams still hold the school records for wins in a single season with 40. Bergstrom, a native of Austin, Minnesota, was a four-time All-Conference pick, a three-time All-Great Lakes Region First Team selection and an NFCA Third Team All-American in 1999 and Second Team All-American in 2000. She was named to the 2000 NCAA finals all-tournament team, a tournament in which she pitched all 15 innings in a 3-2 elimination-game win over Roanoke. At the time of her induction, Bergstrom still held the school record for innings pitched in a season with 214 2/3 in the 1999 season when she fashioned a 24-9 record with an 0.91 ERA. She was still the career leader in games started (88), complete games (68) and tied for the lead in shutouts (27). She was second in wins (74), appearances (108), innings pitched (628 1/3), ERA (1.34) and strikeouts (343). Bergstrom was a Blugold Super Six Award Winner in 2000 and named to the WIAC All-Centennial softball team in 2012.
Bergstrom graduated cum laude in 2000 with a degree in biology and was pursuing her master’s degree in food science from Kansas State. At the time of her induction, she had been employed by Land O’Lakes since 2002 and had been a senior technologist since 2003. She was a member of the Foodservice K12 Team that won the Land O’Lakes President’s Award in 2010. She began her career as a lab technologist with the Parker Hughes Cancer Center. At the time of her induction, she and her husband Kyle were the parents of one child.
