Softball: Stout sisters lead St. Charles East by South Elgin
The St. Charles East softball team effectively used the longball in its Upstate Eight Conference crossover game at South Elgin Tuesday.
The Saints scored 8 runs on 4 swings of the bat in the 11-3 victory over the Storm.
East's Madelynn Stout plated 3 runs with 2 home runs while her older sister Rylee hit a 2-run dinger. Paige Ligocki added a 3-run blast.
The Saints scored all the runs they need with a 5-run first inning.
With runners on first and second, sixth-place batter Ligocki smashed the first offering from South Elgin starting pitcher Allison Kaiser over the left field fence.
After designated hitter Alyssa Thurman followed with a walk, Madelynn Stout hit a 1-0 pitch that also landed over the left-field fence.
Saints starting pitcher Delaney Devor put East up 6-0 in the top of the second with an RBI double.
Rylee Stout widened the lead to 8-1 with her home run in the fourth. Her sophomore sister hit her second dinger, a solo shot, in the fifth.
"I was just trying to get more power behind the ball than the first one," Madelynn Stout said of her second home run.
The younger Stout went 3-for-4, adding a single in the third.
Devor, who got the win, notched her second RBI in the fifth inning with a bloop single. With a 10-1 lead, sophomore Krista Sbarra replaced Devor in the circle in the bottom of the frame.
East (12-3, 3-2) scored its final run in the sixth on a Ligocki sacrifice fly.
"The offense was great," said East coach Jarod Gutesha. "It was five-zip after the first so everyone gets to play relaxed the rest the game."
Although the wind was blowing out, Gutesha did not think it was a factor in the home runs.
"All balls were hit on the barrel. The one Riley hit was right on the screws and it was going out no matter what," Gutesha said. "Every ball that was hit, wasn't just a creeper that just barely made it over the fence."
Sbarra gave up a run in the fifth and the seventh innings. In the fifth, Mariah Spivey doubled and scored on McKayla Timmon's single. Casey Brennan scored the final Storm run on a Spivey single up the middle.
South Elgin (8-8, 3-1) had runners in scoring position in the first 3 innings but only managed one run on a Timmons single in the third.
"She (Devor) did a good job on the mound and they came out swinging," said South Elgin coach Brad Reynard. "She really spun it well. She kept us off balance, dotting corners. She did a really, really good job. We had chances but they made it tough on us"
"We put some runners on but then our defense kind of tightened up for Devor," Gutesha said "When you are ahead, your opponent tries to scratch and get one run at a time. They weren't able to do that."