Softball: St. Charles East overcomes weather, Geneva
Lightning struck at the right time for the St. Charles East softball team Friday at Geneva, first in a delay and then off the bats of Lauren Luna and Maddy Stout.
In a showdown for first place in the Upstate Eight River, the Vikings had the momentum after erasing a 5-2 deficit against freshman Katie Arrambide by scoring three runs in the sixth inning to tie the game.
Geneva held St. Charles East in the top of the seventh and had the top of its order coming up in the bottom of the seventh when lightning delayed the game for about 40 minutes.
After the delay it was the Saints who regained control, first with Arrambide pitching a scoreless seventh and then Luna and Stout blasting 2-run homers in the top of the eighth for a 9-5 victory.
"They had momentum going into the delay and I don't know if we would have that much hype to us without the delay," said Stout after the Saints stayed warm during the delay in the women's bathroom. "We had time to talk and got our mindset right."
Geneva (15-4, 8-2) got off to a good start in the seventh when Katie Geary singled. But the Vikings weren't able to get a bunt down, then Arrambide retired Katie Keller and Emily Viebrock (2-3, HR) to end the threat.
"We had our chance in the seventh," said Vikings coach Greg Dierks, who won his 500th game the previous day. "We lost that game in the bottom of the seventh inning. We have to score.
"We're not going to make this a weather loss. We are going to take responsibility for some of our at-bats early and not scoring in the seventh."
After the Vikings dropped a fly ball in the eighth, Luna hit her third home run of the season over the center field fence for a 7-5 lead.
"I was looking for an outside pitch and I saw a good pitch and I just drove it," Luna said.
Sara Campagna followed with a single and then Stout hammered her first home run of the season off Aly Dierks.
"Before today the season had been pretty slow for me hitting-wise," Stout said. "It felt really good to be able to get on that and line it up really well. Hopefully this will get me going. My pitch selection has been off lately. Nothing has been quite on."
St. Charles East (14-4, 6-1) took a 1-0 lead in the second on Campagna's RBI single. The Saints added two more in the third when Krista Sbarra hit her first homer and Paige Ligocki came through with a 2-out RBI single.
From 3-0 to 4-1 to 5-2 the Saints stayed in control until the Vikings rallied in the sixth. Keller and Viebrock singled to start the inning, Dierks doubled and Bella Walton delivered a 2-run single that tied the game.
"We felt good at 5-2 with Katie pitching but they did a nice job tying it up," Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said. "We were wondering how we would bounce back, it was cold and it was windy. Whatever they did in there (the bathroom) was something good. They were ready."
Both Arrambide and Aly Dierks struck out 6 batters in difficult pitching conditions. Ligocki led the Saints with 3 hits, and Campagna, Stout, Sbarra and Maddie Candre - who opened the game with a diving catch in deep center field - all had 2 hits.
Geary and Viebrock both had 2 hits for Geneva.
"They (the Saints) were blasting away," Greg Dierks said. "Their bats are aggressive. From our standpoint we were really proud of how we played from the middle to the sixth inning. We showed a lot of guts and fought hard against a good team and a good pitcher and hit a lot of nice balls to get back even."