Trost throws gem, but WW South falls

Wheaton Warrenville South's Maddie Trost couldn't really pitch much better than she did Saturday morning, but unfortunately for the Tigers it was not quite good enough.

The Tigers hurler commanded her pitches well, hitting both sides of the plate with precision, but wound up on the short end of a 1-0 softball score after visiting Plainfield North tallied an unearned run in the sixth inning for the only run of the game.

Trost (2-3) had 8 strikeouts and at one point struck out four straight hitters looking. She allowed just four hits over seven innings, but two of them came back-to-back in the top of the sixth as Plainfield North (5-3) scored the only run it needed to claim the nonconference victory.

"That's the best she's pitched, hands down," Tigers coach Jeff Pawlak said. "We had talked a ton about just falling behind hitters, and today for the most part she was ahead. It allows her to throw her other pitches. She pitched with confidence today. That is a huge positive for us today."

Trost credited her catcher and her fielders with helping her pitch so well.

"The catcher did great. She's very good at spotting, which helps a lot, and I feel like I couldn't do it without my defense," Trost said of catcher Kristin Vlach and her other teammates. "It was definitely one of my better games and we played a lot better together."

While Trost was on top of her game, Plainfield North's Delaney Johnson did her best to keep the hosts at bay. While earning her first win of the year, Johnson held the Tigers (2-5) to just 4 hits, two of which were bunt singles. Twice in the game Wheaton Warrenville South advanced a runner as far as third but couldn't push across a run.

"I feel like we didn't have good at-bats. We tried to pull everything and we hit a lot of stuff off the end of the bat, hung stuff up in the air. Instead of staying with the ball and hitting it where it was pitched," Pawlak said.

In the bottom of the fifth with two outs, Michelle Bresingham hit a sinking line drive to right field that got past the outfielder for a triple, but she was stranded. In the sixth speedy leadoff hitter Sydney Young opened with a bunt single and was bunted over to second. She reached third on a groundout but then she too was left at third base.

Plainfield North, meanwhile, took advantage of an infield error with one out in the sixth by following up with singles from Jacadi Rivera and Sydney Schmittel to plate the game's only run.

"We played a really good game," Pawlak said. "I told the girls mistakes will happen. We made one and we just didn't pick her up."

Plainfield North coach Allison Wodziak had plenty of praise for Trost, saying: "She's definitely had the most movement (we've seen) and she left us guessing. That was our first problem, I told them, you can't guess. We'd wait for her to go outside and then she'd bust us at the knees and we were staring at it."