Softball: Geneva strikes fast, tops St. Charles North
The Geneva softball team has been waiting a long time for a week like this.
The Vikings started with a 10-1 win over Batavia, followed by beating St. Charles East 9-5, and completed a sweep of their Tri-Cities rivals on Friday by topping St. Charles North 8-3.
"To come through with three wins, they are all aware of how special this is," Geneva coach Greg Dierks said. "We have to keep our eye on the ball and focus on what is ahead. We're certainly not going to change anything."
No. 10 Geneva (18-2, 9-0 in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division) extended its winning streak to 16 games while taking a 2-game lead in the River race.
"It's huge," said third baseman Molly Wrenn, a 4-year varsity player. "It puts us in a good place for conference. It's really good confidence for us to go into the second round.
"It's never happened before (beating all three rivals in the same week). It's good we all came together and got it done. We've been error free and talking to each other. Once one person starts hitting we all start hitting and it piggybacks on each other."
The hitting has been starting at the top of the order with Katie Keller. She followed a 4-for-4 day against St. Charles East by once again getting on base all four times Friday with 2 walks, a double and a single.
"That's a nice streak," Dierks said. "It's such a big deal to have that at the top of the order. And the girls behind her are getting the job done too."
Keller walked in the first against Natalie Walters, took second on Kate Geary's bunt and scored on Kaitlyn Plocinski's RBI double off the right-field fence. Wrenn followed with a double just fair inside the right field line to score Plocinski for a 2-0 lead.
"We were hoping to land the first punch today and we did," Dierks said. "Pitching and defense has been very solid and it held up again today."
No. 18 St. Charles North (9-6, 4-3) got a run back in the second before the Vikings broke the game open with a 5-run third. Keller once again started the rally with a double and scored on Geary's single. Plocinski doubled off the fence for the second straight time, Annika Radabaugh singled, and the North Stars booted a grounder by Alyssa Kramer.
St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin wasn't happy with some quick at-bats against Geneva starter Emily Viebrock (12-0), who needed just 5 pitches to get out of the first, 7 in the third and 6 in the fourth.
The North Stars' defense picked up later in the game with web gems by Alyssa Eby at second base and Jessica Wilson in right field, and they finally got to Viebrock for 2 runs in the seventh. But by then Geneva was well on its way to its impressive back-to-back wins over the St. Charles schools.
"They can hit up and down the lineup," Poulin said. "We made too many mistakes. The free bases we give and mistakes in the field, it's not a ton of them, but when you make them against quality teams you are going to need to score 10 runs to win."