Huntley topples Jacobs to reach regional final

DeKALB - It didn't take a whole lot to motivate the Huntley softball team on Wednesday.

Having lost to Jacobs twice during the Fox Valley Conference season, the Red Raiders came out with a vengeance when the two teams met in the semifinals of the Class 4A DeKalb regional.

The top-seeded Raiders pounded out 10 hits in just four at-bats in beating Jacobs 16-6 in five innings.

"We came in with confidence and we were ready to hit," said Huntley junior second baseman Hayley O'Mara, who was 3-for-4 with a triple and 5 RBI. "We've been practicing hard and everybody contributed."

Huntley (23-8) will play for the regional championship at 10 a.m. Saturday against the winner of Thursday's game between DeKalb and Dundee-Crown. Huntley, seeking its first regional title since 2009, lost to DeKalb in last year's regional final.

Junior Jessica Shields scored 4 runs and added 3 RBI, including a 2-run single in the bottom of the fourth that gave Huntley a 16-5 lead. Freshman Autumn Kasal also had 2 hits and an RBI.

"Once one of us starts hitting we all hit down the line," said O'Mara. "We all proved ourselves today. We want to take it all the way. We want to go as far as we can."

Huntley jumped on top 7-1 after two innings and 11-1 after three frames before Jacobs (16-19) came back with 4 runs in the top of the fourth. But the Red Raiders countered with 5 in the bottom of the inning then, with Teaghan Richman at third base representing the game-prolonging run, Huntley freshman pitcher Tiffany Giese got Jessica Powell, who had doubled in her previous at-bat, to ground out to O'Mara to end the game on the slaughter rule.

"We put the work in the last couple of days and it transferred to the field today," said Huntley coach Mark Petryniec. "Seven (runs) was the goal so we met expectations."

This from a team that scored only 5 runs total in its two losses to Jacobs during the regular season.

"We made the adjustments," said Petryniec. "We hit a lot of balls in the air the last two times against them. Today we hit right side a lot and moved runners."

Jacobs' defense helped Huntley's cause as well with 4 errors, and while the Golden Eagles had 8 hits, they appeared off their game early on in falling behind big.

"We were pressing right from the start," said Jacobs coach Katie O'Brien. "We were late getting here and we were out of our routine. But we can't make excuses. We came out with what was successful in the past and we just didn't do it today, The magic ran out with my comeback kids today and we saw errors from girls who hadn't made errors all year. That was surprising."

Richman, the starting and losing pitcher, was 3-for-3 at the plate for the Eagles with a triple. Jess Mrzlak added 2 RBI.