Who's hot? Bartlett, that's who
The last week of May is an ideal time for a high school softball team to get hot.
And the Bartlett Hawks are hot.
Alyssa Nowak and Elyse Hickey hit home runs while Amber Pagan and Danielle Kirby took care of things in the pitchers circle Friday as the Hawks rolled to a 7-1 Upstate Eight Valley win over South Elgin, avenging a loss to their district rival from earlier in the season in the process.
The win was the fourth straight and sixth in seven games for Bartlett, which secured its fourth straight 20-win season and has now scored 43 runs on 50 hits in four games this week.
"The kids are playing well," said Hawks' coach Jim Wolfsmith, who won his 295th career game. "I love the way we're playing this week and it's nice to get a win over South Elgin after losing to them last time. It's been an all-around good week."
The Hawks (20-9-1, 13-7) jumped ahead 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning. Katie Fornoff led off with an infield single and was forced at second on Lauren Janczak's grounder. Janczak stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Hickey's sacrifice fly, which came just ahead of Nowak's blast to left-center field, her fifth homer of the season, that made it a 2-0 game.
South Elgin starter Karli Dobler then settled in and held the Hawks scoreless the next two innings but in the fourth Bartlett made it a 4-0 advantage.
Catcher Suzie Miceli led the inning off with a single to right and courtesy runner Sydney Quagliano was sacrificed to second by Sarah Schmitz. Quagliano stopped at third on a single from Kirby and scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0. Ashley Barr, running for Kirby, then scored on a two-out RBI single from Fornoff to make it 4-0.
The Hawks added to the lead in the fifth, with Hickey's third home run in as many days leading off the inning. Then, with two outs, Miceli and Schmitz singled. Quagliano, running for Miceli, took third on Schmitz's bloop hit and Schmitz alertly went to second on the throw in from the outfield. They both scored on Kirby's single to left to put Bartlett comfortably ahead 7-0.
Meanwhile, Pagan and Kirby were stymying all of South Elgin's hitters except for Rachel Ziemba, who had 3 of the Storm's 4 hits. Pagan started, went 3 innings, Kirby came in and went 3 innings, then Pagan pitched the seventh. They combined for 7 strikeouts and 1 walk.
"(Wolfsmith) told us we were going to start splitting games," said Pagan, who moved her record to 3-1 with the win. "It's evening out the time and not overusing our arms."
"We've been splitting a lot of games this year," said Wolfsmith, whose team plays Antioch at 8 p.m. Saturday at Bandits Stadium in Rosemont. "Right now it's about getting ready for the postseason."
South Elgin (12-16, 10-10) did scratch out a run in the sixth to avoid the shutout. Ziemba led off with a single and eventually scored on a throwing error. Amber Derr's single in the inning was the only other hit for South Elgin aside from Ziemba's three.
"We can't control how the other team hits, we just have to answer and today we didn't," said Storm coach Stephanie Katzenberger. "We played good defense and (Bartlett) had some bloop hits but they outhit us. They came to win and they did.