Humility is something Katie Chenault—a freshman pitcher for Allan Hancock College softball and a four-year varsity player from Ernest Righetti High School—knows well.
“It’s made me really humble to be achieving what I am in my softball career right now,” Chenault said. “I know I’m not better than anyone else. It’s just the game I love to play.”
The California Community College Fastpitch Coaches Association (3CFCA) has named her Southern California Pitcher of the Week twice, an honor that came as quite a shock to Chenault.
“I didn’t even know they gave it to me the first week until my friend showed me online,” she said. “All I’m doing is pitching, so I guess I didn’t really know I had accomplished that much. But I have the highest strikeouts in the state, which is awesome. It feels great.”
Despite her accomplishments, Chenault still prepares for games the same way she always has.
“I wake up and put my makeup on. Do girl things, you know,” she said. “Once I put on my game pants and shirt, that’s when I really get in the mindset that I’m playing today.”
But for Chenault, there’s really nothing different about a game day until her cleats hit the field.
“I always get nervous that moment I step in the circle and see all the fans around me,” she said. “It goes away after the first pitch, though, especially if it’s a strike. And then I’m like, ‘OK, I got this.’”
If strikes aren’t in the cards for Chenault, she’s equipped to handle that as well.
“If things start to go bad, I just tell myself that it’s going to get better,” she said. “I don’t freak out if I walk someone or someone gets a hit on me. I always have to keep a level head.”
She does, however, have a weakness: the tendency to blame herself when her team is behind.
“As the pitcher, sometimes when we’re losing I think it’s my fault,” Chenault said. “I know I shouldn’t take it upon myself to think that way, but sometimes it’s hard not to. It’s a lot of pressure.”
As a member of the Bulldogs, she said she knows she can always count on the rest of the girls to “have my back.”
“If something is someone else’s fault, you take the fault, too,” she said. “It’s everyone as a whole, like a family unit. We win as a team and we lose as a team.”
This article appears in Mar 13-20, 2014.