St. Charles North knows how to hit under pressure
Two out of three ain't bad, or so the old song goes, which might be how St. Charles North looks back on its rugged week of Upstate Eight action.
The North Stars faced a grueling three-game stretch in consecutive days. They opened with a 4-3 win over Bartlett, followed by beating Lake Park 4-1, but came up a game short of the sweep when Neuqua Valley rallied for five runs in the sixth inning for a wild 10-9 win Thursday.
That outburst came after the North Stars had scored four runs in its half of the sixth to take the lead. Three errors and three Wildcat home runs proved too much to overcome.
Still, the North Stars (10-2, 3-1) are in good shape as they take aim at a second straight conference title.
Coach April Stary knows she has a talented group to work with.
"I'm taking advantage of what the bus brings me," said Stary, who has five juniors in her lineup that have started since they were freshmen - Amanda Ciran, Natalie Capone, Loren Cihlar and the Russell sisters, Taylor and Sydney.
"All of them have incrementally gotten better and this year I have seen the biggest increase in all five of the freshmen I had," Stary said. "Those five that started (as freshmen) have just gotten better and better and better. Taylor is on the top of the list defensively and offensively. Amanda has gotten better even with the distance thing (changing to 43 feet). She has got more spin, more movement, she's got change on her ball so she can throw off-speed more."
Speaking of the new rule moving the circle back three feet to 43 feet, the change is certainly putting a premium on the teams that can play defense.
"We know like everybody else the game is different from 43 feet and you are going to have to play better defense," Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "The days of the 15-strikeout games are gone. You are going to get 10 to 15 more balls in play than you used to so you have to be ready to play. Sometimes balls are going to be hard and require quick decisions."
Two-out terrors: In St. Charles North's 4-3 win over Bartlett, the North Stars scored three of their runs on two-out hits.
"We've been very good on that," third baseman Taylor Russell said. "We don't get down on ourselves with two outs. If there is a runner on we want to score."
Junior Annie Korth also delivered one of the clutch hits. She said the reason she is successful in that situation is she doesn't think about it.
"When I got up to bat I feel I have to hit the ball and honestly I don't try to think about how many outs there are so that doesn't psych me out," Korth said. "I had two strikes and I just wanted to hit the ball and she (Bartlett pitcher Callie Dennison) gave me a pitch right there."
Senior leadership: When Geneva got off to a 2-7 start this season, it was up to players like senior captain Stacey Cladis to make sure the Vikings didn't get discouraged.
It worked. Geneva has bounced back to 5-8, including key Western Sun wins over Kaneland and Batavia that leave the Vikings at 3-1 in the conference.
"I'm trying to keep the sprits up, trying to keep the energy up in the dugout and on the field so we keep making the plays, keep our head in the game," Cladis said. "Just leading them the best as I can. Helping us learn and learn from our mistakes and get better every day."
That is a similar job for Katie Luetkens, Batavia's senior shortstop who had this to say after Thursday's 4-2 loss at Geneva:
"We definitely came out hot with the bats and we were playing a solid game. It is disheartening when we have baserunning mistakes. At the end of the day we weren't able to score runs. It's not physical because all of us can hit. You have to have a positive attitude at the plate. This is a tough loss but we have to be able to come back from it."
New schedule: First-year Kaneland coach Brian Willis can't wait to have his crack at arranging the Knights' nonconference schedule next season.
The Knights opened Western Sun Conference play last week with losses to Glenbard South and Geneva.
It certainly could have helped Kaneland to have more than two games before the Knights began their Western Sun play. A week off over spring break while other teams were busy playing games won't happen again.
"The previous coach (Dennis Hansen) always went on vacation so he never scheduled anything," Willis said. "We were kind of a victim of that. We will remedy that next year so we don't have those big gaps between playing."