St. Charles East's Hall quiets Neuqua Valley
Pitching for the third consecutive day can have some drawbacks.
For St. Charles East junior Jordan Hall, it was a case of mind over matter as she took the mound to face Neuqua Valley Wednesday afternoon.
Hall raised her record to 7-0 by tossing a 5-hitter during the Saints' 4-1 Upstate Eight Conference softball victory over the Wildcats (4-10, 2-3) in St. Charles.
"Sometimes it is physical and you have to ice after a while but most of it is mental," said Hall, who picked up her third win in as many days after pitching against Naperville North and Bartlett.
"You have to get through it. You have to believe in yourself."
After wiggling herself out of a bases-loaded situation in the top of the first, Hall went to the mound the next inning with a 3-0 lead.
The Saints (12-1, 5-0) staged a 2-out uprising in their half of the first. Katie Kolb walked, stole second and scored on Alex Latoria's RBI single to right field for a 1-0 lead. Jordan Hieber followed with a single and Rylee Stout reached on an infield hit to load the bases.
Latoria raced home with the second run of the inning on a wild pitch and Hieber scored after the return throw from the catcher got past Wildcats sophomore pitcher Julia Rainer.
"It helps when we get a couple runs early," said Hall. "We can get people on and people in when we need to."
Neuqua Valley scored its lone run in the third when Brooke Kuzniewicz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and 2 out. However, the Wildcats left the bases loaded for the second time in 3 innings and stranded 2 more runners in the fifth as Hall recorded 1 of her 5 strikeouts.
"More pressure helps me because it makes me focus and bear down," said Hall, who walked 4 and allowed 5 hits.
"She kept hitting the glove," Saints coach Kelly Horan said of Hall. "I thought we had a great game plan today. When you have a pitcher pitching for the third day in a row, your defense has to be spot-on and I thought they did a good job with that."
Back-to-back doubles from freshman Madelyn Candre and Kolb provided the Saints' final run in the third.
Hall retired 7 of the final 8 batters she faced and caught a break of sorts when shortstop Olivia Cheatham caught a soft liner off the bat of Alexis Sales and threw to nail the runner who strayed off first base for a double play in the sixth.
"They're a team that likes to come back and is mentally tough," Horan said of the Wildcats, who rallied past Geneva 5-3 on Tuesday. "We were absolutely aware that they were a mentally strong team that had the ability to come back.
"We're also mentally strong. I was happy that we were able to shut the door there at the end."
Jenny Budds and Nicole Dehnel each had a pair of hits for the Wildcats while Rainer walked 1, fanned 6 and allowed 6 hits.
"She starts slow and then perplexes a lot of teams," Neuqua Valley coach Laura McCarthy said of Rainer. "We had a lot of kids playing positions they haven't played before. We had a lot of hits - we just didn't have the timely hits.
"You get upset when you lose a game. You'd rather have the 'W' for sure but against a quality program like this and against a team as good as this - to come out playing well it's a small victory. I want the win though."