Grant outlasts McHenry
Nikki Nazario jacked and snacked on Apple Jacks.
Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but the sugar buzz provided tasty results for the senior first baseman.
“It keeps me going,” a laughing Nazario said of her in-game cereal treat. “I got to get energy.”
Sweeter still for Nazario and her Grant softball teammates was their 6-5, season-opening win over visiting McHenry on Friday.
Nazario had Grant’s first hit — a moonshot homer over the center-field fence — and Amber Smith accounted for the last. Smith’s two-out, line-drive single off the hip of Warriors freshman pitcher Emily Rhodes drove in Jessica Catinella from third base with the go-ahead run in the bottom of the fifth.
With a steady rain starting to pour, the two umpires huddled after Smith’s hit, consulted Grant coach Mike Dolezel and called the game.
Smith stood on first base, as surprised as anyone that the game was called so quickly.
“I was like, ‘This happened so fast. I was just in the box and now it’s over,’ ” said Smith, the Bulldogs’ junior catcher and identical twin of second baseman Molly Smith. “I thought we were at least going to finish the game.”
“We looked at the (weather) front,” Dolezel said. “The field’s not going to take much water.”
Grant’s sugar-sweet win understandably left a sour taste in the mouth of McHenry coach Pam McCarrel, whose team was also playing its season opener. The Warriors had scored twice in the top of fifth to erase a 4-3 deficit.
“All things considered, we played a game,” McCarrel said. “That’s good. We needed to do that. And I’m happy with how (our players) responded after going down. They came back.”
Grant pitcher Rachel DePouw threw all 5 innings, allowing only 1 earned run, while striking out five. She also showed atypical control, walking three and hitting a batter.
McHenry’s Rosie Barucca touched DePouw for a 2-run single in a second inning that featured 1 of Grant’s 3 errors.
Nazario, the Bulldogs’ No. 8 hitter, got one of the runs back leading off the bottom of the second. She said she hit 6 or 7 home runs on the JV level last year, but this was the first of her career on varsity.
“All I was thinking about was that I got to prove that I can be up in the batting order,” said Nazario, who beat McHenry in the regional last year with a walk-off RBI single in extra innings.
DePouw drew a bases-loaded walk — her third base on balls in as many plate appearances — with the bases loaded to pull Grant even at 3-3 in the fourth. Hannah Graham followed by getting hit with a pitch, driving in the go-ahead run.
Micaela Mitsch’s 2-run single gave the lead back to McHenry, before Nazario got Grant’s fifth-inning rally started with her second walk.
A wild pitch plated Nazario with the tying run, before Amber Smith provided her clutch — and game-winning — hit after Rhodes fell behind 3-1 in the count.
“I knew it was going to be over the plate because on 3-1 you got to get it somewhere for a strike,” Smith said. “I knew where it was coming and I took advantage of it.”
Molly Smith had Grant’s other hit. The Bulldogs walked 10 times.
“We didn’t play real well,” Dolezal said. “But we got the win.”