South Elgin survives a scare
South Elgin almost fell victim to “anything can happen on any given day” on Tuesday.
Fifth-seeded Streamwood, a 4-24 team, stormed onto the South Elgin Storm’s own field and stunned the Class 4A regional semifinal hosts and crowd with a 7-run first inning.
But the Sabres couldn’t capitalize on their momentum and in the end, Shannon Conway’s RBI double with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning sent Brittany Koss across the plate with the game-winning run as top-seeded South Elgin survived the Sabres’ upset bid, 8-7.
“I just told them after the first inning that we didn’t have to go get all seven back at once,” said a relieved Storm coach Jason Schaal. “We just needed to get 2-3 an inning and we did a great job with that.”
The Storm (21-14) will play the winner of today’s semifinal between Elgin and DeKalb for the regional title. If Elgin wins today, the championship game will be at 4:30 p.m. Friday. If DeKalb wins, the title game will be played Saturday at a time to be decided, as South Elgin has graduation Saturday at 11 a.m. The regional champ advances to the Rockford Guilford sectional semifinals on June 1.
For the better part of Tuesday, though, people started asking when Streamwood’s graduation was schedule for as the Sabres looked like they were on their way to a regional title game. Four hits and three South Elgin errors contributed to the Sabres’ 7 runs in the first inning as did an RBI double from Kylee Jambor and RBI singles from Andrea Barajas and Kaitlyn Hedger. The Sabres sent 12 batters to the plate before South Elgin and junior right-hander Sam Bolin could get out of the nightmare.
“It was tough,” Bolin said of the first inning. “It always creeps in that you could lose. But our mentality stayed the same ... that we could win the game. It wasn’t that we were flat, but we were on top of our game after that.”
And from there the Storm went to work on Streamwood and the freshman Hedger. Senior Katelyn Stonecipher, who was named the Upstate Eight Valley Division Offensive Player of the Year, doubled, took third on a wild pitch and scored on Kara Rodriguez’s sacrifice fly to make it 7-1. In the second, Sara Irving doubled and eventually scored on a passed ball, and Victoria Watt singled and eventually scored on an RBI single from Stonecipher (3-for-5, 4 SBs) to make it 7-3. It became 7-6 in the third when two infield errors opened the door for a run to score as well as for a 2-run single from Stonecipher. South Elgin’s climb into a tie was complete in the fifth when Stonecipher reached on an error, stole second and came home on Rodriguez’s windblown double.
“You can’t give them five outs in an inning,” lamented Streamwood coach Nick Baird. “When you start messing up the routine bad things happen.”
Hedger was able to get through the sixth with no damage as South Elgin, which left 10 runners on base and 8 in scoring position, left courtesy runner Cara Wolf stranded at second.
And the Sabres had a chance to go ahead in the top of the seventh after Brittany Delao and Jambor opened the inning with singles. But Conway snared Dani Fisher’s line drive and turned a double play at second and Bolin got Barajas to hit a soft liner to Watt at short to set South Elgin up for the bottom of the seventh.
With one out, Streamwood dropped an infield pop up allowing Koss to reach. With two outs, Rodriguez walked and Conway, an all-conference choice who had gone 0-for-4, stepped up and delivered the game-winner to the gap in left-center field.
“I knew my team needed it,” said Conway of her 15th double of the season, tying Kim Pierce’s school record. “I had to relax and just think it was a 0-0 game with no outs. It was right down the middle and when I felt it on my bat I knew it was a solid hit.”
Schaal couldn’t have asked for a better scenario.
“I couldn’t have been more confident in Shannon,” he said. “She hit over .500 in conference.”
After the shaky first inning, Bolin scattered 5 hits, struck out four and didn’t walk anyone.
“I never question Sam’s effort,” Schaal said. “She had to buckle down. The whole team had to buckle down. And we did.”
Freshman Alyssa Buddle was 3-for-3 for the Storm, while senior Bri Bodajewicz, who will play at Division II Regis University next year, had 2 hits for the Sabres.
“That was our season in a nutshell,” Baird said. “We came out firing in the first inning and then we didn’t score again. But I’m proud of my girls. They battled with the best team in this regional and never gave up. I want to thank my five seniors for all their hard work.”