Geneva shocks St. Charles North
Geneva capped its best week of softball Friday with the ultimate exclamation point.
Sarah Laster hustled home on a wild pickoff throw to third base, scoring what proved to be the winning run in the Vikings’ 2-run sixth inning rally for a 6-4 victory over one of the area’s measuring stick for softball excellence, St. Charles North.
The loss snapped the North Stars’ 17-game winning streak and followed Geneva’s impressive wins this week over Elgin, Batavia and Bartlett.
“This is five days in a row of as good as we’ve ever played since I’ve been here,” Geneva coach Greg Dierks said. “Each day we’ve gotten better. Today we hit the ball great.”
Just a week ago Geneva (17-6, 11-3) lost 6-2 to St. Charles North. Getting a second look at Amanda Ciran proved to be a huge difference as the Vikings had 11 hits to hand the ace her first loss, now 12-1.
“We got to see what she pitches and knew what to expect,” said Laster, one of three Vikings with 2 hits along with Melissa Barber and Kirsten Searcy. “We just brought our all today.
“This is a really big win because the last couple years we haven’t been able to beat them. It’s probably one of the best pitchers we’ve seen.”
Seeing their winning streak come to an end wasn’t the worst part of the day for St. Charles North (18-12, 12-1). Second baseman Sydney Russell had to be carried off the field when she jammed her right ankle sliding into second base in the sixth inning.
With Russell lying on the ground at second base in obvious pain, North Stars coach Tom Poulin and her sister Taylor Russell came over while Geneva’s trainer looked at her ankle. The trainer and Poulin then carried Russell into the dugout, and freshman Sabrina Rabin took her place at second base.
Poulin said Russell’s ankle injury isn’t as bad as it could have been.
“(The trainer) said it was a sprain, not real bad, stay off it for a couple days and it is going to start feeling better,” Poulin said. “It was real low in the ankle and the top of the foot. I guess the higher the worse. Looks like she’ll be able to bounce back but she’s in pain.”
Sydney Russell got the North Stars off to a great start ripping the first pitch of the game for a double to deep right field. She scored on Taylor Russell’s RBI single as the sisters, who went 5-for-6 against Geneva starter Kelly McCaffrey last Friday, were at it again going 5-for-8.
Geneva tied the game in the second when Searcy doubled and scored on Laster’s single.
After Taylor Russell and Ashley Seering both rocketed balls deep off the fence that went for a long single and RBI double, respectively, for a 2-1 lead, Geneva answered with a 3-run third inning to go up 4-2.
Back-to-back bunt singles by Dori Rogers and Bridget Weitzel got the rally started, and a rare error by shortstop Natalie Capone loaded the bases. Searcy singled in 2 runs and McCaffrey helped herself with an RBI single.
“Give credit to Geneva, they played a great game,” Poulin said. “I was just disappointed in our play-making abilities when the ball was put in play.
“We did a lot of uncharacteristic things. We booted the ball. We gave them 5, 6 outs in an innings. We looked like we never covered a bunt before.”
The North Stars tied the game in the fourth. A single by Annie Korth and a double by Caitlyn Khoury put runners on second and third. Sydney Russell singled in one run, then the North Stars drew a throw to first base and Khoury stole home on the play to tie the game 4-4.
The turning point came in the sixth inning when McCaffrey, pitching her fifth game in as many days, escaped a bases-loaded jam by retiring the North Stars’ No. 3 and 4 hitters, Taylor Russell and Seering.
“That was a rough one to get out of,” Dierks said. “To get their (top) hitters, that was quite an accomplishment to get out of that.”
In the bottom half, Laster singled and after a pair of wild pitches stood at third base. Korth fired down to third to try to pick her off, but the throw got away and Laster scored for a 5-4 lead. The North Stars later threw away a bunt that allowed Claire Stribling to score an insurance run — one of 4 errors.
“We didn’t look like the team we’ve been all year,” Poulin said.
McCaffrey set the North Stars down in order on just 7 pitches in the seventh. The final out came on a liner to Laster in left field, and the Vikings celebrated a win that shows they can play with anyone — which they will need as they learned Friday they have a potential regional final looming against No. 1 sectional seed Elk Grove.
“This will be a nice confidence boost,” Dierks said. “We couldn’t handle them (St. Charles North) last year and we couldn’t handle Elk Grove last year (in sectionals) but we are showing we can do some things this year that we couldn’t do before.”