Willowbrook bats back up Dannenberg
Obviously there was a first-inning pitch that Willowbrook's Zoe Dannenberg would love to have back, but aside from that one the Warriors softball pitcher had no complaints at all.
Dannenberg left an 0-2 offering up over the plate that Glenbard West shortstop Rachel Terwilliger smacked over the wall for a 2-run home run in the bottom of the first inning in Glen Ellyn. But those were the only runs she allowed in a five-inning 14-2 defeat of the Hilltoppers as Dannenberg pitched a 2-hitter while improving to 3-1 this spring.
Even with Terwilliger's blast, Willowbrook (4-2) still led 4-2 after a 4-run top of the first, and the visitors' offense kept piling on the runs en route to the rules-shortened win.
"It was just good to have my team come back, and we came back swinging," Dannenberg said. "I'm really happy that they had my back and that was good. I think (our hitters) are pretty good. We've got a petty strong team this year."
The first of six Hilltoppers errors helped the Warriors score four times in the first off Glenbard West hurler Caylin Potter. But the 3-4-5 hitters also came through as Sam Schmidt had a double, Alyssa Ressinger singled her home and Delaney Pelsor capped the big first inning with a 2-run homer.
The lead grew to 7-2 in the second after the Hilltoppers made three errors in the infield and Schmidt, who went 4-for-4, singled in a run. The Warriors shortstop also had an inside-the-park homer in the third that hit off the wall in center field and bounced far enough off the fence away from the outfielders that she raced around the diamond and gave her team an 11-2 lead.
Willowbrook coach Rachel Karos liked the way her pitcher shook off the first-inning homer by the opposition and then really liked what she saw form the offense throughout.
"That is a good lesson for her to learn," Karos said of the 0-2 pitch that caught too much of the plate. "But again what I like about Zoe so much is her ability to shake it off, to just fight harder the next full inning. It obviously helps when our bats are hot. It was nice today because literally one through nine (hit) … it looks like we've got our confidence going now."
Hilltoppers coach Mary McGrane, whose team has a lot less varsity experience this spring than the Warriors do, felt her team's offense and defense didn't push Willowbrook as hard as it should have on the cold afternoon.
"Honestly, I thought our approach at the plate wasn't the greatest. We're better than that," McGrane said. "Kaelyn (Potter), we ask her to get a lot of groundball outs and she probably left too many balls up today. And then defensively we didn't help her out. We dropped flyballs … had too many errors. We've got a lot of fight in them. We just didn't see it today."