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Kestas' success worth the wait for Naperville Central

The talent in Naperville Central pitcher Julie Kestas was evident as early as her freshman softball season.

Even so, what the Redhawks hurler accomplished this season surpassed all expectations, especially during a late-season 15-game winning streak that helped deliver a DuPage Valley Conference title and another deep playoff run.

Kestas was dominant in the circle during the long hot streak. She never allowed more than two runs while carrying a young Redhawks squad to 26 wins and a Class 4A regional crown before falling to top-seeded Downers Grove South in the sectional championship game.

Kestas was behind some talented Naperville Central pitchers on the depth chart the last two seasons yet managed to go 21-2 before taking over the roles of both ace and team leader this spring. She went 10-1 with 5 shutouts for a Redhawks team that was 32-4 in 2013. Then she went 11-1 last year while sharing pitching duties with Keegan Hayes, who now pitches at Northern Illinois University.

But this season the program needed Kestas to lead the way, and lead she did, going 20-5 with 216 strikeouts and a 0.93 ERA. The Bradley recruit also delivered some key hits this spring, and her impressive campaign landed her honors as the Daily Herald All-Area team captain.

As great as she was on the field, her coaches credit Kestas with setting great examples off the field and showing her teammates how to excel both mentally and physically.

“Every single year that we come back together she has used her time well in the offseason to really work on her pitching and work on her mental game,” said Naperville Central pitching coach Jackelyn Cardard, a former standout pitcher herself at Naperville North and the University of Illinois. “And I thought she really relished in the opportunity to be a leader this year.”

There were a few hiccups early in the season when a young team in search of its identity dropped its first two DVC games. Kestas herself opened the season 5-4, a rude awakening for a pitcher who had lost just twice over the last two springs. But then everything seemed to click for the pitcher and for her team.

During its run to the conference crown and to the sectional final, the Redhawks' offense and defense came alive and Kestas became almost unhittable.

“I'm not 100 percent there yet, but my mental game has gotten better where if I'm struggling I realize I need to take a breath and compose myself,” Kestas said about one of her keys to success this season. “I've gotten better with that. When I was younger I'd freak out with runners on base. I'd be like, no, I'm doing bad. Now I realize nobody can be perfect all the time. I can't strike everyone out every time.”

But Kestas and her teammates were close to perfect for much of this season. Senior shortstop Lisa Tassi played big in the field and at the plate, and so did sophomore catcher Abbey Place, who worked well with Kestas this year.

“I feel more confident and I feel that my catcher Abbey Place and I are working harder to play against the batter's weaknesses,” Kestas explained. “We're thinking a little more. Abbey went from zero to 100 (in handling pitchers) in no time, which is crazy, awesome. She's helped me so much.

“This year was like stepping into big shoes … last year I stepped my foot in the water. This year I'm fully submerged in the water.”

The Beginning

Kestas has always loved playing softball, starting out around the age of 7 with T-ball and then playing with the Naperville Diamonds as an 8-year-old. She pretty much always pitched and it was her father, Ken, who helped mold her into a Division I player.

“I succeeded with pitching right from the start, so it was something I kept with and my dad always made me practice,” she said. “He made me stick with it and we practiced pitching almost every day in the backyard. I would nail him a couple times in the shin and he would be like, ‘I don't know why I do this.' ”

Ken Kestas was more a hockey guy than softball, but he worked with his daughter so much that she became a hard thrower who could also mix in some well-placed changeups.

“My freshman year I started coming along and that was when I started to think that I really wanted to play in college,” she said. “In eighth grade I went and watched the College World Series and that was, like, amazing. I was, like, I want to come back here and I want to play on this field. That was my dream ever since.”

An ace in waiting

As good as Kestas was in 2013 and 2014, she was behind older talented pitchers, including Hayes. Even so, she followed up a 10-1 sophomore campaign by going 11-1 last year with a 1.55 ERA, 5 shutouts and 2 saves. She struck out 129 batters in just 99⅔ innings, one more than Hayes struck out while going 17-7.

“The thing is she was outstanding last year,” Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum said. “It was like, what am I going to do? She's the player of the year this year, and the other kid (Hayes) was the MAC Player of the Week twice this year as a freshman.

“I probably should have redshirted one of them,” Nussbaum joked.

Kestas learned a lot from Hayes last year and used some of those lessons to dominate the area this spring.

“Last year Keegan was such a big inspiration for me. I looked up to her a lot,” Kestas said of her former teammate. “I didn't pitch as much last year because Keegan was there, but it was always fun watching her. She had the mentality like, ‘Go Mode' and of believing in your defense and stuff. And she taught me well.”

While not the No. 1 pitcher last spring, Kestas certainly was 1A, and her success and experience carried over into a big senior campaign.

“It was big last year being able to get some starts in and getting a feel of what varsity feels like, and knowing that next year was going to probably only be me,” she said of her mindset. “All of us seniors were like, we've got to put the pedal to the metal. It was definitely a lot of pressure, but I knew I could talk to the girls about it … and be like, ‘Hey, I feel a lot of pressure and I need you guys to have my back now and I need you to play some big D.'

“I think they really understood that it was really big for me. That it's not all about me. That I need them too. I got all my confidence from my defense and my offense all year.”

Images: Daily Herald All-Area Spring 2015 Honorary Team Captains

  Julie Kestas of Naperville Central pitches against Wheaton North during softball on Monday in Naperville. Bev Horne/bhorne@dailyherald.com
  Julie Kestas of Naperville Central. Bev Horne/bhorne@dailyherald.com
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