Konchar, West Chicago rally past Glenbard South

Glenbard South refused to let Mary Connolly beat it with the bat on Wednesday.

So Jen Konchar did instead.

The West Chicago senior singled in Connolly with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, as the 16th-ranked Wildcats rallied past No. 3 Glenbard South 6-5 at Pioneer Park.

Connolly was walked for the fifth time with one out in a 5-5 game. She advanced to second on a wild pitch, and one out later Konchar drilled a 2-strike offering over the left fielder to bring in Connolly.

Connolly scored 3 times, twice on Konchar basehits.

“It definitely makes you think, ‘Oh, do you think that Mary is the only one that can hit on our team?’” Konchar said. “All of us can hit. We showed that today.”

West Chicago (4-3) trailed 5-2 after three innings but came back for its first close win of the young season. The Wildcats dropped a nine-inning season opener to Marist and had lost 2-1 to Geneva on Monday.

“I have no problem relying on my teammates to get the job done. I have all the confidence in the world in them,” Connolly said. “We were a little shaky at first, but as the game went on we gained momentum. We weren’t going to throw in the towel.”

Shaky defense cost both teams at times, particularly Glenbard South late. The teams combined for 6 errors, and 5 of the game’s first 8 runs came in on fielding miscues.

A two-out Raiders throwing error in the fifth made it 5-3, and Jessica Wood’s bloop double with two outs in the sixth scored Casey Christ to make it 5-4. Rachel Johnson reached on an error after a Connolly walk leading off the seventh, and after a nicely turned Glenbard South double play Rachel Venchus beat out an infield hit to tie it.

“(The errors) are a little uncharacteristic for us,” Glenbard South coach Julie Fonda said, “but I’d rather see those than mental mistakes any day of the week.”

Glenbard South (3-1) smacked 4 doubles off Connolly in the game’s first three innings, two by leadoff hitter Brianna Meath to start the first and third innings, to grab the 5-2 lead.

But Connolly (3-2) settled in after that, retiring 18 of 19 batters at one point. She struck out 11 and worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the top of the ninth to keep the game tied.

“I think with Mary sometimes, she has unbelievable talent but sometimes she focuses in better than other times,” West Chicago coach Kim Wallner said. “We actually started coming up with a pitch sequence with her, we found a couple pitches that she was throwing and we decided to stick with those because that was what we found they had trouble getting to.”

Jenny Wittenberg and Jane Trzaska both went 2-for-3 with a double and run scored for Glenbard South.

“I’m proud of the way we hit the ball today. Even at the end we were putting it in play,” Fonda said. “We were just hitting it right at them. You tip your hat to Connolly, and you walk away saying you hit the ball well and we made some goofy errors we don’t normally make.”