‘Just be you’
Shifflett carries his late father’s words to the mound, and those carry him — and Valparaiso — to victory
There was a small index card in Valparaiso senior Jimmie Shifflett’s back pocket.
Three words were written on the card: “Just be you.” It’s a phrase he said he always heard from his father, Shaun, who died in December.
But Jimmie Shifflett hadn’t carried that card with him on the mound until Monday. The stakes were different.
“I knew it was a special day,” he said. “It’s the biggest game I’ve ever pitched, and I just wanted to have it feel like he was right there with me.”
Jimmie Shifflett rose to the occasion. The right-hander needed just 72 pitches to shut out Crown Point 1-0 as the Vikings won the Class 4A Chesterton Sectional championship game.
Valparaiso (18-10), which picked up its only run in the second inning on a bases-loaded walk by freshman infielder DJ Malloy, advances to play Lake Central (26-4) in a regional championship game on Saturday.
As soon as the Vikings finished posing for a team picture with their sectional trophy, Jimmie Shifflett walked over to his mother, Kate, for a long hug.
“This game was about much more than just this game for Jimmie,” Kate Shifflett said. “He needed this, and his team came through for him. It was definitely a team effort.”
Kate Shifflett was wearing a necklace with a small cylinder that held Shaun Shifflett’s ashes, one tangible reminder of him. Just before the game, however, she learned her son had put the index card in his back pocket. It had been tucked into the baseball glove Jimmie Shifflett received as a Christmas gift just two weeks after his father died.
“His dad always told him that when he’d get flustered on the mound, it’d show on his face,” Kate Shifflett said. “We told him he couldn’t do that because then the other team knows that they’ve got you. ‘So get on the mound and throw the ball. Just be you.’ ”
Jimmie Shifflett said his father’s influence went well beyond that phrase.
“He coached me until I was 13 or 14, and he was with me every day in the backyard or working with me on my mechanics late night in our garage,” Jimmie Shifflett recalled.
He missed most of his junior season with a fracture in his right elbow and said his father’s death only heightened his determination to have a strong senior season.
“If anything, it pushed me more to be here today,” Jimmie Shifflett said. “It was a lot of the motivation for everything that goes into this.”
All that work paid off Monday, when Jimmie Shifflett allowed just three hits in seven innings, using a wide range of pitches to keep the Bulldogs (15-11) off balance. He improved to 5-1 with a 1.37 ERA.
“He was able to throw all four pitches for strikes, and that’s hard to hit for anybody,” Valparaiso sophomore catcher Maximus Reaume said. “He had all of his stuff working. It made my job easy. All I had to do was sit back there and catch it.”
Jimmie Shifflett pointed to the help he received from his teammates, like his mother did.
“I really just put the ball over the plate and let my defense make the plays,” he said. “I only had one strikeout, but I trust in my defense.”
Valparaiso coach Todd Evans, however, tipped his cap in Jimmie Shifflett’s direction.
“My hat’s off to him,” Evans said. “He’s been through a lot, and he deserves it for sure.”