St. Charles East stays hot despite cold

It takes more than bone-chilling, windy conditions to cool down St. Charles East's softball team these days.

With 7 different players enjoying multihit games, the Saints (14-1, 7-0) sprayed the ball all over the field during their 15-7 Upstate Eight Conference River Division victory over Batavia (8-7, 4-4) Monday afternoon in Batavia.

Despite wind chills hovering in the 30s, the Saints bashed 21 base hits as their bats were anything but cold.

"I think everything else was (cold) but not that," joked Saints coach Kelly Horan. "I think we would have had a couple more hits but some did get caught up in the wind. In a game like that, we're just looking for good, solid contact and I think I got that a big chunk of the time."

St. Charles East sent 12 batters to the plate during its 8-run second inning against Bulldogs freshman left-handed pitcher Kaylan Waldron.

Senior Alex Latoria (2-for-4) led off with a double to left-center and scored the game's first run on sophomore Jordan Hieber's RBI double that barely eluded the outstretched glove of Batavia center fielder Ryanne Rokos.

Sophomore Rylee Stout delivered an RBI single to make it 2-0. With 1 out, junior Kelly Rinker (4-for-6) lined a run-producing single to left-center and a sacrifice fly from freshman Madelyn Candre extended the lead to 4-0.

Junior Katie Kolb (3-for-4) reached on an infield hit to make it 5-0 before Latoria ripped a hard grounder that caromed off the glove of the Bulldogs first baseman, allowing both Delaney Devor (2-for-3) and a hustling Rinker to score the sixth and seventh runs of the inning.

Two pitches later, Hieber (3-for-5, 3 RBI) laced an RBI double to right-center for the Saints' eighth run.

"Once one of us hits, we all start hitting," said Hieber, who added an RBI single in the fourth. "It's very contagious."

At that point, the Bulldogs faced quite an uphill task.

"You can't give up an 8-run inning against a team like that," said Batavia coach Lupe Castellanos. "You almost have to play a perfect game from that point out."

In the sixth, Cat Crossen (3-for-5) smashed an RBI double to deep left-center and run-producing singles from Devor and Kolb gave the Saints a 14-5 cushion.

Stout, who went 4-for-5 with 2 RBI, smacked a solo home run in the seventh to cap the Saints' scoring.

"Well-balanced," Horan said of her team's offense. "I think that's the key. I think we were smart today. With the wind blowing in like this, nobody was trying to hit home runs. We managed to get one still but hitting the line drives and hitting it hard - that's going to lead to success."

"It's all a mental game when it's cold," said Hieber. "We're such a strong hitting team I don't think it was that big of a problem for us."

Junior pitcher Jordan Hall (8-0) worked the first 6 innings before Latoria came on in relief in the seventh.

Sophomore Jena Bendoraitis went 3-for-4 with a double and 2 RBI for the Bulldogs, who committed 2 costly errors.

"Offense-wise, I thought we did an awesome job," said Castellanos. "We put seven (runs) up on the board there. If we had played better defense, I think it would have been a little more competitive."