Benet edges Geneva in 8
Saturday's season-opening softball game between Benet Academy and Geneva had a midseason feel to it.
There was plenty of clutch hitting turned in by both sides, including a pair of two-out, 2-run home runs.
There were a few defensive gems in a well-played game, highlighted by a running catch by Geneva's Maura Bochte in deep right field to retire Benet's Maeve McGuire for the first out of the contest.
Both pitchers — Benet's Allyson Staats and Geneva's Kelly McCaffrey — got ahead of hitters and went the distance, as the nonconference game went into extra innings before the Redwings (1-0) prevailed, 5-4 in 8 innings.
“For the fans, it was entertaining,” said Benet coach Jerry Schilf. “But it was kind of nerve-wracking for us.”
Benet flexed its muscles while grabbing a 3-0 lead in the second inning, thanks in part to a 2-run home run by freshman Julianne Rurka in the first at-bat of her high school career and sophomore Ali Michalik's RBI triple.
“That was pretty phenomenal,” Schilf said of Rurka's towering 2-out home run that cleared the left-field fence on a 0-1 offering from McCaffrey. “She also played flawless at third base. She plays with a lot of confidence for a freshman, and so did our shortstop (Marissa Panko).
“We've got two critical positions that are filled by freshmen and they're probably two of our strongest positions.”
Geneva (0-1) began chipping away at the Redwings' lead in the third when Elena Wright's two-out, 2-strike single drove in Bridget Weitzel and Dori Rogers to cut the deficit to 3-2.
“We needed to get on the board there,” said Dierks. “We haven't scored against them the last two years so we had to convince ourselves maybe a little bit that we could do that.”
After McCaffrey worked out of a first-and-third, one-out jam in the top of the sixth, she helped her own cause in the bottom half of the frame by lining a 2-run, two-out home run over the right-field fence to give the Vikings a 4-3 lead.
“She (Staats) was throwing first-pitch strikes a lot so I was kind of ready,” said McCaffrey.
“That was very exciting,” Dierks said of McCaffrey's go-ahead home run. “We've got power throughout our lineup. I know we're capable of doing it but that's a clutch time to do it.”
Geneva's lead was short-lived, however, as the Redwings sent the game into extra innings on Maeve McGuire's opposite-field RBI double and pulled ahead to stay on Panko's run-producing fielder's choice in the top of eighth.
“That's why there are teammates so that they can pick you up right there when you need them to,” said Staats, who allowed a leadoff single to Melissa Barber in the eighth before recording back-to-back strikeouts to end the game.
“I didn't think Allyson threw as well as she's capable of but at the end she battled,” Schilf said of his senior pitcher. “With a runner on second and one out, she got strikeout-strikeout. That's probably the only time she had back-to-back strikeouts in the entire game and they were critical ones.”
McCaffrey and Wright each had a pair of hits and RBI for the Vikings, who played errorless defense in support of their right-handed pitcher.
“I was happy with the performance but a little bit disappointed with the result,” said Dierks. “We finished strong last year but we didn't start so well, so this is progress. We're going to hopefully win a bunch of games this year.”