Naperville Central knocks out Benet

Forgive Alyssa Wunderlich if she did a double-take walking to the mound to start the second inning.

It isn't often that she works with an early cushion.

No. 7 seed Naperville Central staked Wunderlich to a 3-run lead after an inning, and she struck out 12 to hold off No. 10 Benet 3-2 at the Class 4A Benet regional on Thursday in Lisle.

"I definitely knew that (Benet) had good hitting, for sure," Wunderlich said, "and that they were going to keep fighting all the way. They never want to lose to us, and we never want to lose to them."

Benet left the tying run stranded in scoring position in the fourth and sixth innings. Naperville Central (21-15) advances to play No. 2 Downers Grove North in Saturday's regional final. The Trojans won a 4-3 April meeting, a game the Redhawks led up until the last out.

"We definitely made it entertaining today, didn't we?" Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum asked. "Very similar to our Glenbard North (win) last week in the sense that we got 3 runs and got up early. For us some reason it's a huge difference between 2 and 3."

Kelsey Gonzalez singled to start the Redhawks first, and after a sacrifice Meghan Griffin doubled off the third-base bag. A hit batter and two walks later, Naperville Central led 2-0. Jill Andreoni followed with a two-out bloop single to score Katie Walker with the third run.

"We just dug too big of a hole," Benet coach Jerry Schilf said. "That's kind of been the story of most our season. But our kids didn't quit."

Benet (19-17) drew within 3-2 in the fourth on a pair of unearned runs, the second coming on Shellie Schaffer's single off an outfielder's glove that scored Mikayla Panko.

With runners at first and second, Wunderlich (16-9) retired the last two batters of the inning. Allyson Staats and Lauren Ladowski singles put runners at second and third with two outs for Benet in the sixth, but Wunderlich came back with an inning-ending strikeout.

"She got the big out when she needed it," Nussbaum said.

Wunderlich struck out 20 in her last outing at Benet a year ago.

"Pretty intense, this year and last year," Wunderlich said. "I knew all of them, most of them are pretty good hitters. I just kept mixing it up. All of them know me pretty well, so I just kept them off-balance."

Staats (17-11) didn't allow a hit after the first inning, retiring the last 12 batters she faced.

"We had a couple opportunities to score. There were just too many times that we didn't put the ball in play," Schilf said. "I was really happy with Allyson after that first inning. She really settled down. But we gave them 3 runs. You just can't do that."