St. Charles North knocks off Bartlett

St. Charles North softball coach April Stary admits her team has been on somewhat of a roller-coaster ride this season. What she hopes is that the North Stars use Friday's dominating 6-1 win over Bartlett as a springboard for good things to come.

What Friday's victory did do for the Stars is keep them in the thick of the Upstate Eight Conference title chase. The win gives SCN (14-8 overall) a 9-2 mark in the league and keeps it just one game behind league leader St. Charles East in the loss column. St. Charles East hosts South Elgin at 10 a.m. today. South Elgin is 2 games back in the loss column at 7-3.

"(Thursday) I thought we were starting to get it together and today it all came together," said Stary, whose team fell to Wheaton North Thursday. "We've been hitting some roller coaster loops and hopefully we're on the upside now."

The North Stars certainly were on the upside Friday. Amanda Ciran fired a 3-hitter and Annie Korth and Ashley Seering hit solo home runs to propel the offense.

"Annie Korth has it but we don't always expect it," Stary said. "With Ashley in the 4-5 spot we expect it from her."

Stary and the North Stars have also come to expect the type of pitching performance they got from Ciran Friday. She struck out five and although she walked six, Bartlett (11-10, 4-6) could manage just 3 singles and left 8 runners on base.

"Amanda's on a tear lately," Stary said. "She's been picking 'em up and mowing 'em down."

Ciran credits the North Stars' defense for making her life easier.

"I thought I did a pretty good job and the defense was there behind me," she said. "Our defense has been so good this year. Knowing they're behind me backing me up makes me throw even harder."

For Bartlett, the loss was another in a string of frustrating defeats for the Hawks this season, and they wake up this morning having to play a nonconference doubleheader at No. 1 ranked Fremd.

"We've got to play with more passion," said Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith. "I thought we were flat today. We have to find our passion. Right now it's missing."

Bartlett junior Callie Dennison pitched a decent enough game, allowing just 4 hits, but two of them were the solo bombs, to Korth leading off the bottom of the third, and to Seering with two outs in the fourth. The North Stars got 2 more runs off Dennison in the fifth when she walked 2 batters. Korth, who walked, scored on a wild pitch, and Emily Watts, who stroked a double to right-center, scored on Taylor Russell's sacrifice fly.

The North Stars then added 2 runs in the sixth off Bartlett senior Elizabeth Kay.

But the Hawks' biggest problem was not coming up with a hit when they needed it. They had runners on base in six of the seven innings but only scored in the top of the seventh when pinch-hitter Jacki Gulczynski singled and eventually scored when SCN dropped Dennison's pop up.

"We've got a lot of good hitters but we haven't hit the ball as a team in our big games," Wolfsmith said. "You have to give Ciran credit, she pitched a whale of a game. But we had runners in scoring position and just couldn't get a big hit."

While Wolfsmith realizes his team is pretty much out of the UEC race, he is more concerned with the Hawks righting the ship than he is in playing UEC spoiler.

"I'd like to see us get the passion back," he said. "Right now we don't have it."