Naperville North’s Gabi Chmiel calls it “the trust factor.”
The junior pitcher didn’t have it early in the season, but that has changed.
“I’m starting to trust myself a lot better,” Chmiel said. “Sometimes you’ll see me turn around, and I’m just like, ‘OK, I’ve got this.’ I look at the girls in the field, and I’m like, ‘OK, they’ve got my back too.’
“I think that’s a big thing for me because in the beginning I wasn’t really doing that.”
Chmiel couldn’t identify a specific turning point.
“I think it was just a change in mindset,” she said. “It was kind of like, ‘I’ve got to get this. I’ve got to do this for my team.’”
The results have been impressive for Chmiel and the Huskies, who have won their past five DuPage Valley Conference games.
The latest came Wednesday, when Chmiel hurled a complete-game four-hitter as the Huskies edged host Neuqua Valley 3-2 in Naperville. Chmiel walked four and struck out 12 in the finest outing of her career.
“Gabi had a great game,” Naperville North coach Jerry Kedziora said. “It was amazing what Gabi was able to do.
“She was hitting her spots. She was moving the ball around. She’s talking to us about what’s going on.”
But, just like the season, which the Huskies (7-16, 6-4) started with 11 losses in their first 12 games, the outing did not begin well for Chmiel.
After three batters, the Wildcats (11-12, 7-2) had scored two unearned runs to take a 2-0 lead. Chmiel retired the next two batters before walking Jean Peske.
Kedziora considered bringing in senior Ava Matthews but thought better of it, and Chmiel responded with a strikeout to end the inning. Then she struck out the side in the second inning.
That’s when senior catcher Eliza Patterson knew it was going to be a good day for her battery mate.
“Gabi is a very tough pitcher,” Patterson said. “She works well under pressure. She was doing a great job of hitting her spots today.
“I think those pressure situations work really well with her because they get her adrenaline up and it gets my adrenaline up, and then we just hit our spots and we get those strikeouts.”
The Huskies scored twice in the third inning on an RBI double by senior outfielder Maddi Larsen and an RBI single by sophomore third baseman Reese Pedersen and then took the lead on an unearned run in the fourth.
That was all Chmiel needed. She got out of a two-out, bases-loaded jam in the fifth on a nifty stop by senior second baseman Dylan Witzigreuter.
Neuqua Valley junior Nalia Clifford started a two-out rally in the bottom of the seventh with a single and beat the throw to second on senior Krista Waldusky’s grounder to short. That put the potential tying and winning runs on base, but Chmiel caught the next batter looking with a screwball for a strikeout to end it.
“That was one of the first pitches that I learned,” Chmiel said. “I’ve been throwing it since I was 8 or 9 years old, and then I kind of started learning other pitches.
“I just realized my screwball is my best pitch and it has the most spin on it, so I’ve just been going with that.”
Chmiel (6-8) lowered her earned-run average to 3.66. She has allowed 106 hits and 30 walks and struck out 107 in 86 innings.
“Gabi at the beginning of the year might have lost composure,” Kedziora said. “Now she’s grown and matured a little bit. We had a couple of mistakes, but she didn’t let that bother her.
“She’s been able to shut the door when we needed that to happen.”
The reason is simple.
“I have a lot more confidence in myself,” Chmiel said. “That was the most high-pressure moment that I’ve been in in a while, and it felt good and it got my adrenaline going.
“I knew what to throw. I knew how to throw it and was trusting myself and what I can do because I know I can do it.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter.
