Softball: South Elgin tops Glenbard East to clinch Valley crown
Junior outfielder Casey Brennan can't wait for the day when she can proudly walk through the South Elgin hallways and see a softball conference championship banner hanging on the walls.
That day is just around the corner after the Storm won 8-1 at Glenbard East Thursday night to claim the Upstate Eight Valley title, the program's first softball conference crown.
Brennan walked twice from her leadoff slot and also had an RBI single and two runs scored as South Elgin (16-11, 13-4) bounced back from Tuesday's loss to West Chicago with an impressive outing Thursday in Lombard.
"It's going to be so exciting when all of our friends say, 'Did you win conference?' Yeah we did," Brennan said. "It's going to be a blast. Everyone's excited for us at school."
After Geneva Pollman singled and scored an unearned run in the first, the visitors led throughout and kept padding the lead, while sophomore pitcher Sophia Salazar saved one of her best outings for one of the team's biggest games. Salazar struck out nine Rams hitters and came within one unearned run with two outs in the seventh from coming away with a shutout.
"We've definitely been a little scoreboard watching here the last couple of days," said Storm coach Brad Reynard, whose team split a pair of games with Bartlett during the regular season and eventually edged the runner-up by one game. "It's a good win for our kids, especially coming off a loss to West Chicago.
"Obviously, our girls made it a little tougher on us. But I'd rather they take care of business when they had to today. I'm super-duper proud of them."
Pollman's RBI double in the fourth off Rams ace Tori Tyler made it a 2-0 game, and a 2-run single by Sam Dietz in the fifth gave Salazar more insurance runs than she would need.
"What can I say about Soph?" Reynard said. "She's only a sophomore and to come out in the biggest game that we've played all year, and to get South Elgin's first conference championship in history."
After Brennan scored again in the sixth and the seventh, and Pollman capped off a perfect 4-for-4 day with a 2-run double in the seventh, what was a tight contest for half a game turned into an 8-0 lead.
"Our pitcher had 10 strikeouts, and they had nine strikeouts," Glenbard East coach Dawn Chantos said. "So it was a competitive game, but we made a couple mistakes on defense that cost us. Our hitting was a little off tonight so we didn't produce the runs we normally do."
Salazar is hopeful the solid win will carry over into next week's postseason.
"All the deans when I was walking out said, 'Make sure you win today,' " she said. "It's a big one. It's never happened at our school. Now it's practice, practice and hopefully we do well (in regionals)."
Joselyn Molinar had two hits for the Rams (7-16) and leadoff hitter Sam Dooley had a walk and single and scored the team's lone in the seventh on a wild pitch.