Softball: Powerful memories for Adair, courtesy of Cacini, in a Prospect win
Jim Adair coached his final high school softball game at Prospect High School on Monday afternoon.
The retiring social studies teacher, always a class act with the media, watched sophomore Alyssa Cacini join an elite class of Knights in the RBI department.
Cacini's first two at-bats resulted in a 2-run homer and a 3-run blast, giving her 5 RBI in No. 16-seeded Prospect's 6-1 triumph over No. 18 Lake Forest in the play-in game of the Scouts Class 4A regional.
Prospect (10-21) will face top-seeded Libertyville in Tuesday's 4:30 p.m. semifinal at Lake Forest High School's west campus.
Cacini will enter the game with a single-season school record-tying 47 RBI, thanks to her sixth and seventh homers of the season on Monday.
Lake Forest coach Susie Brugioni saw enough and elected to stay away from Cacini in her next two at-bats, intentionally walking the two-year starter.
Cacini credited an early Sunday evening hitting session with her father Ron for the first multi-homer game of her young career.
"I had previously been inconsistent with my hitting so I wanted to get a little more comfortable starting the playoffs," Cacini said. "He (Ron) gives me confidence with my hitting so I wanted to go out there and hit ball out of the park rather than in the park."
Cacini hit her 10 and 11th homers of her career, now five away from tying the school career mark of 16 set by Casey Lenski a year ago.
Both of Cacini's shots went to the same spot, easily clearing the left-center field fence.
"As soon as a I hit them, I knew they were going out," she said. "They went right to the same spots as I was hitting them (the night before with her father).
"It was definitely great to give coach Adair a win, especially for his last game here."
Adair coached the Knights in 2001 and 2002 and then returned the last six years to direct the program.
"I'm going to miss the girls and the atmosphere," he aid. "We were always out here after home games having cookouts with cheeseburgers. It's just the whole sport of softball and seeing the girls getting better at the right things that I'm going to miss."
The Knights didn't miss many plays in the field behind pitcher Maddie Borkowski, who scattered 9 hits while evening her record at 5-5.
The freshman right-hander struck out four and retired the side in order in the third and seventh innings.
Cacini (2-for-2) was just as efficient in the field where she was flawless with 5 assists and 2 putouts.
Sophomore third baseman Lauren Caldrone (2-for-3, walk) led off the Prospect half of the first inning with a triple to right-center and scored the first run on an infield hit by classmate Alex Kanter (2-for-2, sacrifice bunt, walk).
Also getting hits for the Knights were catcher Cate Meersman, Jennifer Strickland, Cassie Cunniff and Colleen Palcyznski, who shares the team lead in homers with Cacini (7).
Eight different players had hits for the Scouts (3-21), including two by leadoff batter Jonnah Williams.
"We had 9 hits but we just didn't get the big knock with two outs," Brugioni said. "It was a good learning experience for our younger kids.
"We were trying to keep the ball away from (Cacini) in her final at-bats. If you didn't get the ball down on her she was going to lift it up and out of the park. You can tell she's a good hitter and we didn't want to let her beat us again in those last two at-bats."
Brugioni remembered Adair back to his teams in the early 2000s. "He's a good guy," she said. "It's always special when you coach against someone who has been around a long time and to know it was his last home game was special."
"I've still got to pack up the things in my classroom," he said. "It will be a tough day when I turn in the keys as a faculty member. I will be sad. I will miss Prospect all the people here and the kids."