UIC recruit Nina Pesare climbed quickly in softball. So did Benet last year. Will they keep rising?

Benet senior outfielder Nina Pesare has always followed her own path, and she has done so at a time of her choosing.

Pesare doesn’t come from a family of softball stars. Yet she quickly became one, even though she got started in the sport several years later than most elite players.

“I started kind of late,” she said. “I started in sixth grade. I tried every other sport before softball, and then I wanted to give it a shot.”

A coach’s experiment helped convince Pesare to stick with softball.

“I’m usually a right-handed batter, but my first tryouts, they were like, ‘Let’s switch her to a slapper,’” she said. “Ever since then, I’ve been in love with the game. I started at the bottom and kept working my way up.”

Pesare climbed the ladder fast. She made Benet’s varsity team as a freshman, committed to UIC as a sophomore and then led the Redwings to a third-place finish in Class 3A last year.

A three-time all-conference selection in the East Suburban Catholic Conference, Pesare was an all-state third-team pick last season, when she batted .438 with 58 runs scored, 17 RBIs and 22 stolen bases. She sets the table as one of the best leadoff hitters around and routinely makes terrific plays in center field.

“She has the ability to make difficult things look easy,” Benet coach Jerry Schilf said. “She covers a lot of ground. She gets good jumps on the ball.”

Pesare never seems overmatched at the plate, where she has the consistency of a metronome.

“She’s smart, a student of the game,” Schilf said. “She goes up to bat with an idea of what she wants to do, and she’s in control of the pitch count. She’s aggressive but doesn’t strike out a lot.”

Pesare has been playing softball for just six years but has the confidence of a grizzled old-timer. Yet there is no magic behind her success.

“It’s just a lot of hard work,” she said. “I’ve been working on my bunting game, slapping game, hitting game, working as hard as I can in the offseason, playing all year round. I think that’s helped make me consistent.”

But Pesare believes in moderation.

“It’s also not overworking myself,” she said. “I know when to break. I don’t have team practices in the winter, so I kind of work on my own, maintain a schedule of when to hit, then rest. I don’t overuse my arm.”

The same is true with her voice. Pesare is one of five solid senior leaders, but she’s not a rah-rah type.

“She’s kind of quiet from the standpoint that she’s not a yeller and screamer,” Schilf said. “She sets a good example and communicates well with me, let’s me know what’s going on.”

The Redwings have a lot going on. They have nine starters back after their surprising postseason run last season.

“At the beginning of the year, we didn’t even talk about state,” Pesare said. “We just wanted to do good in conference and play our hardest, and I think state just showed all the effort that we put in. It was very unexpected.

“Nobody was expecting it, but it was kind of a miracle. Hopefully we can do the same again.”

The path will be tougher this season because the Redwings have been moved up to Class 4A, but Pesare is determined to help them run it back.

“This is the seniors’ last year and coach Jerry’s last year, so we really want to play our hardest for him,” she said. “Our expectation is to put everything out on the field, and we want to go to state again.”

Pesare clearly is going places. She chose UIC because it has good facilities, is close to home so her family can regularly attend games and has a highly regarded dentistry program.

Pesare aspires to become a dentist, even though there aren’t any dentists in her family.

“I would go a lot as a kid, and I thought it always looked fun, so I guess that was it,” she said. “I’ve never been into anything else. It was something I found on my own.”

Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter.