Hurd mentality: Warren, Palatine strike a blow against cancer

So guess who came up with the idea to splash a giant pink backward K on the front of those black T-shirts Warren's softball team wore for its "Strike Out Breast Cancer" doubleheader against visiting Palatine on Saturday?

"We designed (the T-shirt) ourselves and thought of it," Warren pitcher Kayla Hurd said. "We all worked together as a team."

So it wasn't idea of the hard-throwing pitcher ("K-ayla?") who regularly rings up Ks?

"Well," Hurd said with a shrug, trying to be modest, "kind of."

So guess how Game 1 ended?

With a backward K, of course.

Hurd got a called-third strike, her 11th punchout of the game, to complete 2-hit performance and Warren's 7-2 win.

Palatine rebounded to take the second game 10-3 on a wet, overcast day in Gurnee.

The split left Warren with a 14-5 record, and Palatine with a 12-8 mark.

After committing 4 errors in the first game, Palatine played error-free ball in Game 2, with Pirates second baseman Katie Scovic sparkling both in the field and at the plate. Scovic showed great range in totaling 3 assists and 3 putouts, while also going 3-for-3 with a sacrifice bunt.

"We haven't faced that quality of a pitcher for a while and we took too long to adjust," Palatine coach Jeff Manz said of his team's effort in Game 1 against Hurd. "She's one of the best we've seen all year, if not the best."

Palatine experienced a similar fate the previous Saturday in a doubleheader split against Stevenson, losing the first game.

"I guess that's sort of characteristic of our team," Scovic said. "We've done that in a couple of doubleheaders now, where we've kind of let up in the first game and knew we had to turn it around for the second game. That's just something our team's good at, and it's not just one person."

Hurd handled Palatine in the opener, as the Grand Valley State-bound righty retired the first nine batters she faced. Facing a lineup with five left-handed hitters, she struck out the side in the second inning and again in the seventh.

"I used to not be able to pitch to lefties," Hurd said. "It's been kind of a steppingstone (the last couple of years) for me to pitch to a lefty."

Palatine's only offense came from national anthem singer Sam Salomone, who smacked an RBI single in the fourth - the Pirates' first hit - and ripped a run-scoring double in the sixth.

Warren had 10 hits, all off Pirates lefty Dani Boisvert (5 innings, 5 earned runs), with Alex Booker (RBI, stolen base), Amanda Reed (2 RBI singles) and Sarah Shanders each getting a pair.

Sarah Clauser and Paige Dombrowski both had doubles, while Abby Anderson jacked a 2-run homer to right-center.

The cleanup-hitting Anderson, a 6-foot junior who played JV last year, has been a nice surprise for Warren. She drove in all 3 of the Blue Devils' runs in Game 2 with a 2-run home run (her fourth of the season) and RBI single off Palatine starter and winner Chrissy Roto.

"Everyone's hitting," said Anderson, whose dad, Mark, won the home-run derby between games. "Even if someone is off, the rest of the batting lineup picks them up."

Besides Scovic, Palatine got a 3-hit effort in Game 2 from leadoff hitter Katie Mnichowicz, who scored 4 runs and stole 2 bases. Other contributions came from Salomone (single, RBI), Joanne Jablonski (2-run double), Lauren Logan (single, 2 RBI), birthday-girl Meaghan Deegan (RBI single) and Heather Zimmerman (3 sacrifice bunts).

To help promote breast-cancer awareness, players from both teams wore pink socks. Manz's mother, Sharon, who this summer will celebrate her 12th year of being a breast-cancer survivor, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

"I thought it was really nice of (Warren coach Carri McGahan) to ask her to throw out the first pitch," Manz said. "It meant a lot to her, obviously, and to me, my dad and my family."

Added Manz with a smile: "She practiced for a long time before she went out there."