Glenbard South wins fourth straight league title
Glenbard South coach Julie Fonda didn't hold back, jumping into a crowd of celebrating girls at third base.
Her Raiders have made quite a leap in a short time, too.
Glenbard South beat Kaneland 5-1 on Friday in Glen Ellyn for their 12th straight Western Sun Conference win, in the process sewing up its fourth consecutive outright conference championship.
The same team that started 0-2 in conference, 1-8 overall? Hardly.
"It just took a while for us to click," Fonda said. "This is a team that showed a lot of character and perseverance. Out of all the conference championships, this one tastes the best because they had to work hard for it and they turned it around."
It was Kaneland (24-8, 10-4), that needed a win Friday to share the league title and Kaneland that snapped Glenbard South's 33-game conference winning streak on April 7. This time the Raiders (19-12, 12-2) scored 4 runs in the fourth, and sophomore pitcher Jess Wilkes made it stand.
"People at our school look up to us to win," Wilkes said, "and we want to hold on to that tradition. We didn't want to be the team to lose conference."
Scoreless after three innings, Raiders sophomore Jenny Wittenberg dropped a single in front of the Kaneland right fielder to start the bottom of the fourth. She stole second and moved to third on a sacrifice.
Danielle Chitkowski then put down a squeeze bunt between the mound and home plate, Wittenberg sliding in ahead of the flip home.
"Danielle has been doing a good job for us all season," Wittenberg said. "As soon as I saw it on the ground, I just went."
Amanda Fazzari reached on a throwing error, and Wilkes made the Knights pay with a 2-run single to left. Amanda Straka's two-out single made it 4-0.
"Fundamentally, they're extremely sound, they don't beat themselves," Kaneland assistant coach Ken Neahring said of Glenbard South, "and if you open the door just a little bit for them they take advantage."
Kaneland stranded a runner in scoring position in the first, third and fifth innings before finally getting on the board in the sixth. Jessica Lubic doubled with one out and scored on Rilee Vest's two-out single. But Glenbard South, which blew a 4-0 lead to Kaneland in the teams' first meeting, answered with a run in the bottom half.
"A lot of these girls on the two teams play together," Fonda said, "and a lot of my girls go out west to play for the Aurora Raiders. They know each other. That makes this win taste even better. On the way home from our game with Rochelle and theirs with Batavia yesterday, the text messages were flying."
Wilkes (10-5) struck out five, as did Kaneland starting pitcher Delani Vest (16-5).
Glenbard North 2, Naperville North 1: Hannah Santora (19-4) struck out 15, as the Panthers wrapped up the DuPage Valley Conference outright championship. Alyssa Jasinski went 2-for-3 with a double and scored 2 runs for the Panthers (23-6, 12-2), DVC champions for the seventh time in eight years.