Glenbard South's Wilkes finds winning strategy

Jess Wilkes copes with pressure by limiting her mind to positive thoughts.

If that doesn't work, she seeks out mom.

"I just clear my head a lot of the time - I looked over at my mom a lot today," the Glenbard South junior said. "I don't think about the situation or look at the scoreboard. I just think about what pumps me up - my favorite song, what's for dinner. I stop, take a breath and clear my head. Otherwise it gets too intense."

Wilkes didn't buckle on Tuesday, working out of two jams to strand the tying runs in a 3-2 Raiders win over Wheaton North in Glen Ellyn.

Glenbard South (3-0) led 3-1 going into the seventh, but things got tenuous when Kelsey Ullrich drilled a leadoff homer and Katie Thornton walked. Annie Thomas sacrificed Thornton to second, but Wilkes struck out the next batter and got a comebacker to end it.

Two innings earlier, Thornton tripled to start the Wheaton North fifth with Glenbard South ahead 2-1. Wilkes induced a short flyball and pop up, and put out the fire with one of her 8 strikeouts.

"She's a stone-cold kid," Raiders coach Julie Fonda said. "She just goes out and gets the job done. It's very tough to rattle her. She trusts her defense, is confident in her pitches and gets it done."

Wheaton North gave back an unearned run the next inning on a Jenny Klich triple and bad-hop grounder to second. Falcons coach Karen Calabrese, though, was pleased at how her girls battled in the season opener after spotting Glenbard South a 2-0 lead in the first.

Falcons junior Paige Wilson scored Wheaton North's first run in the fourth, tripling and scoring on a Rachel Holaway single. Kahla Nolan struck out two.

"For the first game I thought they played well and defensively I thought they played well," Calabrese said. "In my mind those two early runs Glenbard South scored was just jitters. Could we have won that game? Yeah, but I'm OK with that performance."

Glenbard South got things rolling with two out in the first. Jenny Wittenberg tripled, Jane Trzaska walked and Wilkes sliced a double over the right fielder to score both for a 2-0 lead.

"We're usually not that type of team - usually we wait until the sixth inning to score," Fonda said. "It was good to see, but like I said to them, we can't be satisfied with two runs."