Softball: St. Charles East stops Bartlett for 8th straight win
If Bartlett and St. Charles East were playing home run derby Wednesday afternoon in St. Charles, it would have been the Hawks' - and Taylor Rotondo's - day easy.
Instead it was softball, and it was Katie Arrambide who continued turning heads - and missing bats - in what's fast becoming a phenomenal freshman year.
Arrambide struck out 13 and allowed just 2 hits in the Saints' 9-2 win. And once again she was just as dangerous at the plate where she contributed a pair of ringing doubles, the first giving the Saints a 2-1 lead in the second inning and the later driving in two more to highlight a 7-run third inning.
"She's been quality and very consistent at the plate," Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said. "She's come through in the clutch hitting."
The Saints (8-1, 2-0) won their eighth straight game, a streak that included an extra-inning win over West Chicago the previous day when Maddy Stout tied the game with a two-out RBI single in the seventh.
Another freshman, Madelyn Rouse, started that game before Arrambide entered in the seventh and struck out eight straight in the nine-inning win.
"She's settled in," Gutesha said. "Being a freshman, which we have a lot of young kids on the team, definitely from game one she's got a lot more comfortable as has everybody as a group. Today we put it all together. Pitching and defense and offensively we had a very good day."
Both hits Arrambide gave up were solo home runs to Rotondo.
The first came in the second inning and tied the game at 1-1. The ball soared over the left-field fence by a good 20 feet.
Rotondo took her second home run the opposite way in the fourth inning, just over the glove of Saints center fielder Maddie Candre who crashed into the fence trying to catch it.
"The first time I was going for a changeup and as soon as I let it go I knew it wasn't where I wanted it to be," Arrambide said. "I know she's a good hitter. The next time up I tried to do the same thing and I missed my spot again and she took advantage of it. So kudos to her, she's a very good hitter. When she saw a mistake she really emphasized it."
Arrambide, who walked Rotondo in her third at-bat, struck out at least two batters in every inning except the sixth.
"She (Rotondo) saw the ball well, I wish the rest of our team saw the ball well," Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "The young lady (Arrambide) moves the ball well, she's got nice spin. I give her a ton of credit, she kept our offense off-balance the entire game."
Candre led off the first with a double and scored the Saints' first run on Hannah Cozzi's grounder.
After Rotondo tied the game in the top of the second, Arrambide doubled to right to score Krista Sbarra and give the Saints the lead for good in the bottom of the inning.
St. Charles East broke the game open in the third with seven runs. Candre again started the rally with a single, and after Alex Wooten's sacrifice bunt, five straight singles from Cozzi, Paige Ligocki, Lauren Luna, Stout and Sbarra made it 6-1 before Arrambide blasted another double to right to score two more.
"When we have runners on I'm always just trying to move the runners," Arrambide said. "When I saw the pitch outside that's the pitch I like to hit and I just went with it and took it where it was supposed to be."
Bartlett (3-3, 0-2) is a stretch of playing St. Charles North, St. Charles East and Geneva three straight days. Janelle Ulaszek pitched the first 2 1/3 innings Wednesday before Samantha Doron came in for the final 3 2/3.
After making 5 errors against the North Stars, the Hawks had 3 more Wednesday.
"To be honest I'd rather have these kinds of games early in the season to give our kids a measuring stick," Wolfsmith said. "There's no easy games but you want these games so you know what to work on. Two games in a row we had multiple errors. When you have pitchers like we do who pitch to contact, we can't make mistakes. If we don't play a tight game we're asking for trouble."