St. Charles North's new look is old school

When Geneva coach Matt Hahn saw St. Charles North take the field for the North Stars' first home game last week, he did a double take, then had a question.

"I asked them if Dickie Thon and J.R. Richard were coming out," Hahn said, referring to a couple of the mainstays on the Houston Astros teams of the early 1980s. "I didn't know they made uniforms like that anymore."

The North Stars have a new look this year though any fan who grew up on baseball in the 1980s certainly would recognize it.

The uniforms look almost exactly like the memorable Astros uniforms from that era with Houston's orange replaced by St. Charles North's blue.

"A couple guys said we're going with retro unis," explained North Stars coach Todd Genke on how the uniforms came about. "They look pretty nice. Just something to keep the kids excited. A little creamsicle action."

The North Stars have multiple uniforms they can wear each game. Genke said he usually lets the starting pitcher decide.

"We keep winning games they will probably keep wearing them," said Genke whose team won their first eight games of the season until Geneva beat them Monday. "They do look sharp."

The Mettetal brothers have helped the North Stars get off to the fast start. Tyler Mettetal earned the win in the first home game with his twin brother Zach driving home the winning run in the bottom of the seventh.

"The Mettetal brothers are really close," Genke said. "They are heads-up baseball players and they are only sophomores."

"We do everything together," Tyler Mettetal said. "We're the closest twins I know."

Coming together: While Kaneland lost the first three games on its spring trip, the Knights finished strong and have carried that momentum back at home.

With wins over Montini and Marmion last week the Knights moved back to .500, and a 4-3 win over Morris on Monday in their Northern Illinois Big XII opener pushed them to 5-4.

"The trip down helped us a lot, helped our morale," shortstop Joe Panico said.

Morris did cool off the Knights, who had won 5 of 6 games, with a 9-1 victory on Tuesday, but coach Brian Aversa likes what he sees.

"We're getting better every game," Aversa said. "If our offense comes around we're going to be dangerous because we have great pitching and pretty good defense."

Senior leader: Alex Latoria has been a key clog in the St. Charles East softball program since she was a freshman.

There's been home runs at the plate, wins in the circle, stellar defense at third base - and a long postseason run all the way to a Class 4A state championship game.

Now the shoe is on the other foot for Latoria, a senior who is providing leadership for a new group of young Saints.

"It's a different group of girls," Latoria said. "It's a nice change. Fresh faces and stuff. We're younger but everyone is filing in spots and doing great."

A come-from-behind 6-4 win over Bartlett on Tuesday pushed St. Charles East to 11-1 losing only the second game of a doubleheader to Fremd. They are 4-0 in the Upstate Eight.

Jordan Hieber knocked 3 hits against the Hawks and Rylee Stout, Katie Kolb and Kelly Rinker all had 2 hits as the Saints continue to have different players produce up and down their lineup.

"The approaches keep getting better every game," Saints coach Kelly Horan said. "That's pleasing for us. It's great to see everybody when it's their opportunity to get up and play hard and play well."

New coaches in charge: Two schools have new softball coaches this spring. While Megan Tracey picked up her first win at Rosary earlier this week, Kaneland entered Wednesday with a 5-4 record under Peter Goff, also the school's athletic director.

"We're all meshing together," Kaneland third baseman Meg Cohrs said. "Coach Goff does all he can. (Assistant) coach Mike (Kueffler) is there all the time telling us all we could possibly need to know about softball, and the girls are just really into it."

Goff scheduled teams like St. Charles East and West Aurora to get ready for conference play.

"We played our last three games against 4A schools," Goff said. "I'm an old basketball coach and you take that Tom Izzo approach where you play everybody and hopefully that gets you ready to play into June. And that's our goal all along is to get into June because then you've won a regional and anything can happen."

Kaneland, Batavia, West Aurora and Rosary are all part of this weekend's 8-team Fox Valley tournament. Play starts Friday afternoon and concludes with the championship game at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Stuart Sports Complex in Aurora.