Softball: St. Charles East, Huntley among postseason favorites

Softball postseason pairings came out this week, and there's no shortage of area teams to watch.

St. Charles East earned the No. 1 seed in the Fremd sectional, and Huntley nabbed a No. 1 seed of its subsectional.

"Looking at the other teams and what they have done, I felt we were deserving no doubt about," Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said. "We played a lot of tough teams this spring. We might have lost a few but you have that on your resume (playing top teams) you've earned it."

A year ago it was Geneva who earned a No. 1 seed at the Bolingbrook sectional. Unfortunately for the Vikings they never got to the sectional, getting upset by No. 9 Yorkville in the regional finals.

This season Geneva is seeded fifth in Oswego sectional, and the Vikings' first-round opponent is none other than the team that knocked them out last year, No. 12 Yorkville.

"We are happy with our seed," Geneva coach Greg Dierks said. "That's as good as we could hope for. Every regional in our sectional is loaded up. Round one games will be tough to win. Yorkville will be very challenging mentally and physically. They are a very good team that doesn't give up many runs. And we have to embrace the challenge of beating the team that ended our season last year."

St. Charles East also could run into a familiar foe in the sectional semifinals if No. 4 seed St. Charles North wins its regional.

The Saints swept the North Stars in conference play but that doesn't mean much in the postseason. Last year St. Charles East also was a No. 1 sectional seed only to be upset 11-2 by No. 5 St. Charles North in the sectional championship.

"It's a new year, it's a new team," Gutesha said.

Seeing Red: Huntley is in a similar position to last year when the Red Raiders and Barrington were the two No. 1 subsectional seeds in a sectional once again hosted by Huntley. Both teams advanced to the sectional championship game with Barrington winning 13-2.

Like the Saints, Mark Petryniec's Red Raiders are on their way to clinching a conference championship, which will be Huntley's third straight. The Red Raiders have only lost once in the Fox Valley, three games better than Dundee-Crown and Crystal Lake South with four games to go.

"Nothing is taken for granted," Petryniec said. "We know we have a little bit of a target and we are going to get everyone's best. We have to play our best every single day."

Huntley is winning with freshmen Marley Reicher and Paige Berkmeyer in its starting lineup, and another freshman - Briana Bower - coming in to close out games throwing 64 miles per hour. She threw three hitless innings against the Gators on Thursday.

"There's no freshmen on the team this time of year," Petryniec said. "Your experiences you are almost a sophomore. We've been doing this approach most of the year and she (Bower) did great. This (Crystal Lake South) is a big hitting lineup and you tell her just to trust her stuff and your best is hopefully better than their best."

Web gem: St. Charles East center fielder Maddie Candre took two hits away from St. Charles North in a 10-2 win Friday.

On the first, Candre dove to snare a ball in the right-center gap. Three innings later, Candre raced in and again fully extended to catch a sinking blooper.

"Right when it's hit I try to get the best read I can," Candre said. "Sometimes it's a last-minute dive. That last one I didn't know if I was close enough."

Candre certainly was encouraged by her team's play Friday.

"If we play like this every game I have no doubt we'll go to state," Candre said. "They (SCN) are a very good team."

Sparkplug: St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin did something for the first time this week when he called up freshman Anastasia Pappas.

The North Stars have had freshmen play before but never a mid-season call-up. Poulin said Pappas almost made the varsity to start the year. Instead she tore up JV softball.

In her first varsity game Monday Pappas had 2 hits. She was the winning pitcher in her next two games, striking out 8 against Elgin and 7 vs. Glenbard East, also getting a hit in each game. She capped the week Friday as the North Stars' leadoff hitter against St. Charles East, and she also pitched the final three innings.

"She is somebody we believe in and was doing very well at the JV level," Poulin said. "She has a very, very promising future. I felt it was a spark we needed this week. She's going to have a real nice four years."

Pappas has a similar build to former North Star standout Sabrina Rabin, who went on to Northwestern and rewrote several of the Wildcats records.

That's not the only thing that brings back memories of Rabin.

"She reminds me with her attitude and attention to detail and her love of the game," Poulin said. "She's all softball, she's all business."