Hannah Florian’s walk-off home run delivers Trojans 11-9 win over Valparaiso and into tonight’s Chesterton sectional title game against Hobart at 5 p.m.

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Sophomore Jillienne Pittman got the Chesterton softball team going with a two-run home run in the first inning, and junior Hannah Florian did the same on the game’s final pitch to give Chesterton an 11-9 sectional semifinal victory over visiting rival Valparaiso.
Both were no-doubt-about-it clouts that brought teammates bounding out of the dugout to greet the sluggers at home plate with a hero’s welcome.
Which was longer?
The girls simultaneously answered that question with different words.
Florian, her tears dried by now: “Oh, Jillienne’s.”
Pittman, through a fresh set of tears: “Hannah’s. … I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
Why not? Beating Valpo to advance to the sectional title is no ho-hum day at the ballpark. It also allows the Trojans to complete some unfinished business dating all the way back to the season-opening game at Hobart, tonight’s opponent in a sectional final scheduled to start at 5 p.m.
The Trojans opened the season with a 41-degree wind chill and an inning packed with unsightly signs of rust, committing five errors, stranding 10 runners on base and failing to take advantage of seven batters reaching base after getting hit by a pitch to lose 10-7. More than the sloppy play left the Trojans with an empty feeling of unfinished business because the game was called after five innings because of darkness, putting an end to the visiting team’s mounting momentum.
Hobart advanced to tonight’s sectional title game by defeating Portage 15-11 in a game that featured 34 hits and six errors. A pitcher’s duel is not in the forecast, but a first-pitch temperature of 72 degrees is.
Chesterton’s clutch power hitting enabled the Trojans to overcome five errors and retiring the first batter of the inning just once.
How did they do it?
“They can hit,” first-year head coach Erin Cochran said of her players. “And they pick each other up.”
Cochran found a way to get her players to turn Valpo’s incessant high-volume bench jockeying and high-pitched screaming into a positive.
“If they don’t cheer, we don’t cheer out there, so if they keep it up in the dugout, we keep it up out there,” Cochran said.
The Trojans led 8-4 and didn’t hang their heads when the Vikings tied it, 8-8 in the sixth after consecutive two-run innings, and 9-9 in the seventh.
“Our team was staying up and energized the whole time picking each other up and we were able to keep the energy going and I think that helped a lot,” said Florian, who earned the win in relief of freshman Payton Cherep.
Both Pittman and Florian ran their season home run totals to three and the Trojans (12-11) have 19 on the season.
Defensively, the Trojans had some mental lapses, leaving bases uncovered and throwing the ball when eating it was the right play, but they balanced those miscues with spectacular plays. Senior center fielder Alexia Franco (3 for 4, two runs, one RBI) threw a runner out at the plate and made a diving catch on a ball hit in front of her in way-shallow center field. Sophomore catcher Olivia Milton (3 for 5, two runs, a double and an RBI) played a rundown perfectly and made a leaping tag of the runner caught off third base, threw out a runner, and did a nice job of keeping the ball in front of her.
Junior Lila Miller (2 for 4, a run, a double, 2 RBI) and senior Claire Demeter (2 for 4, drove in team’s ninth run) also made big contributions at the plate.
Florian made sure none of that was wasted with a moment she’ll never forget.
“I’ve never had a walk-off home run,” Florian said. “There was one time where I hit a home run in travel and it was my last season with a bunch of girls that I played with for six years and I hit a home run to tie it up, so we went into extra innings, but never a walk-off hit.”
Afterward, Florian didn’t even remember that her home run cleared the fence in center.
“I just heard everyone cheering,” she said.
Pittman, whose homer easily cleared the fence in left-center, said she always thinks “go to the right side. It wasn’t normal at all. Mine always go right.”
Pittman won’t need a home run to leave the park happy tonight.
“I just want to win. That’s all I want,” Pittman said. “Sectionals. We have to win.”
Added Cochran: “We just need to keep it up and stay rolling. We can win this.”