Softball: Shattuck, WW South beat Metea Valley in 10
Sydne Shattuck was having so much fun Monday afternoon that she felt like she could pitch forever.
Her big hit led the way to the winning run, and the Wheaton Warrenville South senior "only" needed 10 innings of work to pick up a nice win at Metea Valley.
Shattuck led off the top of the 10th inning with a shot to right center and slid in safely with a leadoff double. When she came around on Madison Marcheschi's line single to center, the Tigers were on their way to a 5-4, 10-inning defeat of DuPage Valley Conference-leading Metea Valley in Aurora.
"It's a very exciting win. They're a very good team so to be able to pull that off is awesome," said Shattuck, who allowed 2 earned runs and 8 hits in her season-long contest. "I was feeling good. It was like I could just keep going forever."
After Wheaton Warrenville South rallied from a 3-1 deficit to take a 4-3 lead with three runs in the fifth off Mustangs freshman Rissa Bajusz, it looked like the game might not be extended. But Metea Valley leadoff hitter Sydney Bajusz homered with one out in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game at 4-4.
From there both pitchers stayed sharp until the 10th, when Shattuck started the winning rally. "I was just thinking basehit, got to get on, we need a runner in scoring position… . I wasn't thinking anything other than I've got to help the team," she said.
Even after scoring the lead run, Shattuck's work was not done. Sydney Bajusz opened the bottom of the 10th with a double before the Tigers eventually survived following a pair of strikeouts and a grounder to second baseman Lauren Brown.
The win snapped a three-game skid for Wheaton Warrenville South (8-7, 3-4) and dropped Metea Valley to 5-2 in the DVC and 11-7 overall.
"It was good to see," Tigers coach Jeff Pawlak said. "It was a real good team win. I'm really, really happy with as bad as we started out that game, I'm really proud of the way they bounced back."
The Mustangs erased a 1-0 deficit with three runs in the third. The rally started with a double off the bat of Emily Finger, who went 3-for-4. An infield error helped the Mustangs, who also picked up RBI singles from Sam Golminas and Moira Danko.
But, aside from the tying homer in the seventh, Shattuck shut down the hosts after the third inning. Eventually the Tigers prevailed, thanks in part to a pair of errors committed by the Mustangs in the 3-run fifth.
"We feel pretty good about our start (this spring), but we need to work on a few things in practice and it's nice to have the day off tomorrow to work on them before we come back to conference Wednesday," said Sydney Bajusz, a senior center fielder who helped her younger sister by making some nice catches in the field to go along with her clutch home run.
Metea Valley coach Kris Kalivas felt the Bajusz sisters did some nice things in the game, but overall, she wasn't satisfied with the Mustangs' bats or the defense in the costly fifth innings.
"I don't know that we were ready to play today," Kalivas said. "Rissa settled down and pitched a nice ballgame, but we made two defensive mistakes that let the tying runs score. Sydney did a great job in both of those situations hitting under pressure and giving us what we needed late, but really no one consistently hit the ball today. We just weren't seeing the ball well today and it was a little disappointing on the offensive end."