West Chicago ace shuts out Glenbard North
Mary Connolly didn’t need many words to express how satisfying this win was.
Connolly struck out eight, one-hitting a Glenbard North team that had her number last year, and scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh as 18th-ranked West Chicago took the DuPage Valley Conference opener 1-0 on Thursday.
Her team won the DVC last year, but Connolly was hit hard twice in losses to DVC runner-up Glenbard North. Not this time.
“Definitely, it felt really good,” said the DePaul recruit. “There’s no other way to explain it. A great team win.”
Connolly needed to be on her game, because Glenbard North’s Lilly Fecho also had it going. Purdue recruit Fecho took a perfect game into the sixth inning, struck out four and stranded two runners in scoring position in the sixth to keep things scoreless.
West Chicago (8-6, 1-0 DVC) had just one ball leave the infield off Fecho over the first six innings, but Connolly laced a one-out double to the gap in right-center to start the seventh-inning rally.
Next up was Jen Konchar, who drilled a full-count offering to deep center to score Connolly.
“The pitch was more up than all the other pitches she had thrown,” said Konchar, who also has a walk-off hit against No. 6 Glenbard South on her resume. “She was keeping her pitches low up to that point and getting the call. That pitch was up.”
“Lilly threw a great game. She just got a couple pitches up at the end,” Glenbard North coach Josh Sanew said. “They got us today, hopefully next time we can get them back. In this conference I don’t think anybody’s going undefeated.”
No. 5 Glenbard North (8-1, 0-1) came in scoring just a shade under 9 runs per game. But the Panthers managed just three baserunners off Connolly, two reaching on errors.
Their biggest threat came in the fourth, when Fecho reached on a two-out error. Freshman Sydney Benz sliced a double down the right-field line, but on a perfect relay Connolly cut down the Panthers runner at the plate.
Connolly retired the last nine batters, no outs leaving the infield.
“Connolly was on,” Sanew said. “We hit a couple balls early that were right at people, but it seemed like as the game wore on we got a little defensive early in the count. That’s the best pitcher we’ve seen all year. She showed why she’s a DI player.”
“My catcher and I had a lesson last night, we knew they were a great hitting team so we had to work on sequencing,” Connolly said, “what was probably going to work against them and what would get hit around. You have to realize what pitches have been hit by certain hitters, you look at past stats and talk it over with your catcher.”
West Chicago coach Kim Wallner thought Connolly threw her best this year against Lockport last week. That performance perhaps was one-upped Thursday.
“I just think it’s the maturity of Mary. She’s come into her own,” Wallner said. “Against Lockport she threw like I’ve never seen her throw. This one was right up there, too.”