South Elgin's bats alive in win over Palatine
While the pitching and defense may be a bit inexperienced, one thing the South Elgin softball team still has is hitting.
The Storm showed that on Tuesday, rapping out 10 hits in a 13-7 win over Palatine in the season opener for both teams at The Dome at the Ballpark in Rosemont.
"We had a lot of people getting their first varsity at-bats and their first varsity playing time so there were some first-game jitters," said South Elgin coach Stephanie Katzenberger. "And we had an entirely new outfield. But we've got some hitters and I'm glad the bats overpowered everything else today."
One Storm player who does have varsity experience is senior third baseman Taylor Ford, who reached base in all four of her plate appearances. She had 2 hits including an RBI double and she reached on an error and a fielders choice.
"We have a really good hitting team so we'll be able to get runs," said Ford, who scored twice in the win. "Our pitchers are inexperienced but as long as we keep hitting and scoring runs like we did today and play good defense, we'll be OK."
Palatine led 5-4 when South Elgin broke loose for 4 runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Sophomore Allison Kaiser (HBP), junior Amber Derr (bunt 1B), junior Cassidy Westlund (walk) and junior Alexa Rogalla (RBI single) all reached base and scored in the inning for the Storm.
Junior Stacy Bellack (2-for-4, 2B, 2 RBI) had an RBI groundout and the Storm scored another run on a Pirates' error to take an 8-5 lead.
Katzenberger then went to junior Rachel Weiss in the circle in relief of starting and winning pitcher Karli Dobler, and Weiss was able to shut the Pirates out in the fifth and sixth innings.
Palatine coach Nicole Pauly also made a pitching change, going to freshman Maddie Craver in relief of senior starter Erin Davis. But while Craver was able to shut the Storm down in the fifth, South Elgin used 3 of Palatine's 5 errors to score 5 unearned runs - all with two outs - in the sixth inning to put the game away.
With one out Westlund reached on an error and then, with two outs, Palatine committed errors around an infield single from Ford that allowed Westlund to score. Sophomore Bri Pena then drove in a run with a single ahead of a 2-run home run to left field from senior Demi Queen (2-for-3, 3 RBI) that made it a 13-5 game.
Palatine did come back and score twice in the seventh off South Elgin junior Annamae Valdivia as senior Maria Howell (2-for-4) had a 2-run single.
Junior Victoria Parrott went 3-for-4 for the Pirates, who also had 10 hits but who left 10 runners on base. Junior Emily Griffin added an RBI double and junior Kenzie Craver had 2 hits.
"The mistakes we made are mistakes teams typically make in a first game," said Pauly. "We made some great plays I'm excited about and we'll just have to learn from the mistakes we made and move on.
"Offensively we got in the box and took some cuts. We got hits up and down the lineup and scored runs, we just made costly errors."