Longtime teammates Payton Cherep and Jill Pittman keep it humble and lead Trojans softball team to a 10-0, mercy rule win over LaPorte

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The Chesterton softball players are having too much fun doing the things that result in winning games that they aren’t about to warm up assuming they already have done all that’s necessary to add a W to the standings by showing up.
Besides, when one of your two top pitchers and your best hitter in a lineup stocked with several dangerous bats went through as tough a baptism in travel ball as Payton Cherep and Jill Pittman did, you are all too familiar with the different ways a team can lose a softball game.
“I feel like when you come in thinking you’re going to destroy the team it’s going to come back and bite you,” Cherep said. “So, always treat a game like it’s Crown Point or Lake Central and always treat it like they are the best in the state and you have to play it like that.”
Added Pittman: “It’s better to be humble. Because if you’re not humble, then it normally doesn’t go your way.”
If you’re full of yourself, Cherep said, “you play lazy and don’t play to your full potential.”
The girls not only said all the right things on that topic, they and their teammates practiced what they preached in contributing to a 10-0, five-inning mercy-rule victory over the Slicers on a chilly Wednesday.
Cherep (3-3, 2.92) pitched a complete game five-hitter, walked one and struck out eight. She has 49 strikeouts in 36 innings. She also drove in three runs with a bases-loaded double. A part-time first baseman, Cherep also has driven in 17 runs.
Pittman went 3 for 3, doubled and drove in three runs. Pittman’s batting a team-best .583 and has three home runs, has scored 15 runs and driven in 14 for the Trojans, who improved to 8-4 overall and 7-2 in the DAC, in third place behind only the state’s No. 1 ranked Lake Central and No. 3 Crown Point.
Cherep and Pittman, both juniors, weren’t always winning big.
In their first year as teammates, playing for an 8U travel ball team, they didn’t win a single game.
“We’ve gotten to grow together, which is nice because we’ve been playing with each other since we were 8, travel and high school,” Cherep said. “This is our eighth year.”
It didn’t take long for them to reverse the losing ways.
“We got better and we haven’t been bad since,” Pittman said. “We bounced back.”
Playing together for so long has given both a deep appreciation for each other’s games.
“I wish I was more consistent hitting like Jill because I like how she’s very consistent and she just doesn’t care where she just hits the ball,” Cherep said. “And I like her mentality in the game. She always has to tell me to stay positive.”
Pittman plays a solid third base for the Trojans, but still envies her longtime teammate’s glove.
“I wish that I fielded as well as Payton,” Pittman said. “She just gets her butt down and stays there, and I think that’s amazing because I struggle with that sometimes, like with that backhand that popped out of my glove (for an error). I pulled my head. I’m not going to say I didn’t.”
Chesterton won its two DAC games by a combined 32-0 score, the first coming at Michigan City and took the games as seriously as if they had been against Lake Central and Crown Point.
The Trojans won’t need to use their imaginations to do that this coming week. They travel to St. John to play Lake Central on Tuesday and are at home Wednesday vs. Crown Point.