Wheaton Academy beats Lisle in 7th

While not thrilled with a couple earlier at-bats, Wheaton Academy third baseman Cassie Bonga had no complaints at all about her final trip to the plate Monday night in West Chicago.

With the scored tied at 9-9 between the host Warriors and visiting Lisle (1-1). Bonga blasted a deep fly over the left fielder's head to score Rachel Savage with the game-winning run. The Warriors, who had trailed Lisle 9-6, rallied for the exciting win that made new coach Sammy Marshall a winner in her debut.

"It was fun to be able to pull it out at the end after such a close game the entire game," said Bonga, who was 0-for-2 with a walk before delivering the walkoff hit off Lisle reliever Mel Ericson. "That felt good after a little bit of a rough day batting. That was fun to end it on that note."

The Warriors were in position to rally - trailing 9-8 headed to the bottom of the seventh - in large part due to the big game from sophomore Maddie Ebeling. Ebeling belted 2 home runs, went 3-for-4 with 5 RBI and also played a solid shortstop.

Ebeling's first homer was a towering 2-run shot that lifted the home team on top 6-5 after four innings. The shot also scored Andi Pivaronas, who had reached on a walk, and it capped a 4-run inning that erased the Lions' 5-2 lead. In the sixth the slugger took a low pitch away and sent another 2-run shot over the fence with Pivaronas once again on board for the ride.

"The first one was a high pitch so I just kind of worked on getting on top of it," said Ebeling, who hit 3 homers last spring. "Then the second pitch, I'm pretty sure she was trying to pitch around me. It was a missed spot so I kind of took advantage of it."

Marshall, a former standout at Naperville North and Western Illinois University, was most excited about her team's resiliency in the season opener. Lisle took a 3-0 lead in the third, led 5-2 in the fourth and came back after the first of Ebeling's home runs. Each time Wheaton Academy fought back.

"That was fantastic to see, especially the first game just to see their tenacity and dedication," Marshall said. "They never gave up. They never gave up on each other or on themselves. That was great to see just them just bounce back like that."

For Lisle it was a tough setback, but first-year coach Trent Schalk liked his team's battling as well. The Lions used 6 hits and 6 walks to tally 9 runs. Leadoff hitter Julia Ullmann led the way by reaching all four times, twice with singles and also with a walk and a hit batsman. Ericson also delivered from the ninth spot in the order with an RBI triple that scored Tiffany Harmon in the fourth and a run-scoring groundout in the fifth that gave the Lions a 9-6 lead in the top of the fifth.

"There's some things we can clean up in places, but they battled," he said. "(Ebeling) is a great player and she hit two key hits, but we hung in there and we battled with them. I'm very proud with the way they performed."