Softball: St. Charles East slams St. Charles North
With everything clicking about as well as it could for St. Charles East Friday, center fielder Maddie Candre took a look at St. Charles North's new scoreboard and couldn't quite believe what she saw.
The Saints scored in each of the first six innings, turning what almost always is a nail-biter between the two rivals into a runaway 10-2 win for St. Charles East.
Candre liked what she saw while making sure her team kept it up.
"I've never been part of a lead this big," said Candre, a senior who has been playing in this game for four years. "I emphasized to my team not to let up. We have to keep playing like we can."
With three Upstate Eight River games left, St. Charles East (20-6, 14-1) holds a 2-game lead on Geneva. The Saints outhit the North Stars 14-6 led by a 3-hit game from Sara Campagna including her first home run.
"We hit the heck out of the ball and played great defense and got great pitching," Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said. "When you do those three things you are going to come out on top of a lot of ballgames. The schedule we've played, we've seen a lot of good pitching, I believe it has prepared these kids for these big games."
St. Charles North (14-8, 11-5) came much closer to beating the Saints in the first meeting, losing 1-0 on a home run by Candre and 1-hitter by Katie Arrambide, but the rematch was never in doubt.
The Saints jumped on the North Stars early. The second batter of the game, Campagna, homered to left field off Jillian Waslawski after almost hitting her first home run the day before against Elgin.
"I wasn't really surprised," Campagna said. "I knew Jillian was a good pitcher. I had a good approach coming to the plate. I was looking for a pitch to hit that I could handle and it just happened. I wasn't trying to hit a home run."
Lauren Luna's single got past the North Stars right fielder - one of the team's 4 errors - that allowed Candre to score from first base for a 2-0 lead.
Waslawski got a run back in the first with a home run off Arrambide, but St. Charles East capitalized on another error in a 3-run second for a 5-1 lead. Hannah Cozzi started the rally with a single and scored on Krista Sbarra's ground out. Alex Wooten singled in another run, then she scored on Candre's double.
The Saints scored single runs in the third and fourth to chase Waslawski. Maddy Stout doubled and scored on Arrambide's single, and Candre doubled and came in on Paige Ligocki's single.
The North Stars turned to freshman Anastasia Pappas, who was just called up to the varsity Monday. The Saints scored twice in the fifth and once in the sixth before St. Charles North got its first scoreless inning in the seventh.
Campagna went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI while Candre, Luna, Stout and Cozzi all had 2 hits. Sydney Eby had 2 of the 6 hits the North Stars had against Arrambide who improved to 13-3.
Candre helped her pitcher with two diving catches in center, one taking away a hit in the gap and the other a sinking blooper. Stout also ran down a ball in deep left.
"They came ready to win," North Stars coach Tom Poulin said. "One of those days on our side. They were squaring the ball up, they were putting it in the gaps, they made five diving plays, they beat us in each phase."