LC’s Polito stifles Chesterton

Updated: May 4, 2011 11:48PM

CHESTERTON — Lake Central’s Brandon Cloutier led off the second inning Wednesday with a solo home run. Thanks to teammate Jordan Polito, it was the only run the Indians needed.

Polito pitched a complete-game shutout, leading Lake Central to a 2-0 victory over Duneland rival Chesterton and snapping a two-game losing streak for the previously unbeaten and top-ranked Indians.

“Our pitchers have been throwing well all year, but there isn’t one performance that sticks out more than that one,” said Lake Central (15-2, 5-2 DAC) coach Jeff Sandor.

After not allowing a hit until the fourth inning, Polito made some late-inning adjustments that helped preserve the shutout.

“Their hitters started catching on to my fastball and were moving up in the box to take away my outside pitches,” Polito said. “So I started moving inside a bit more to jam their hitters. After that, I started seeing more ground balls and more pop-ups to the left side.”

Chesterton (8-5, 4-4 DAC) coach Jack Campbell said Polito’s success early in the count was a big factor.

“We took first-pitch strikes too many times,” he said. “That’s the ball you want to hit. You only get your pitch one time during an at-bat. And if it’s the first one and you don’t swing at it, then you’re at the pitcher’s mercy.”

Chesterton’s Bobby Humphreys also turned in a stellar performance on the mound, giving up just one earned run in his seven innings.

“Bobby pitched a fantastic game for us,” Campbell said. “He was getting ahead of batters, as well; that’s why it was such a low-scoring game. But he did leave that one pitch up and Cloutier really crushed it.”

Sandor also praised Humphreys’ performance after the game.

“That’s their third pitcher, and he’s really good, too,” he said. “Our goal was to put the ball in play 18 or 19 times. We made them make some plays. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get many leadoff hitters on. We wanted to get him in the stretch and try some bunts to move our runners around.”

Chesterton did make two errors, one of them leading to an insurance run added by the Indians in the fifth inning. But Lake Central’s defense was flawless in support of Polito.

“I’d like to take this defense and put it in our back pocket for the rest of the year,” Sandor said. “If we play defense like that with the pitching we have, we’ll be in every game this year.”

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