Sycamore ends Kaneland’s season

Lyndsey Coddington is listed as a utility player on the Sycamore softball roster.

But the freshman left fielder caused McKinzie Mangers and her Kaneland teammates a season-ending heartbreak Thursday afternoon at the Knights’ Class 3A regional semifinal in Maple Park.

Mangers was the Knights’ last hope, and the junior drove an Abby Foulk pitch to straight-away left field with Kaneland trailing by a run in the top of the seventh inning.

Coddington was soon the beneficiary of a mob hugging by her teammates after leaping for Mangers’ drive and hauling it in while crashing into the fence.

For the second straight year, Sycamore had ended the Knights’ season with a 2-1 victory.

Second-seeded Sycamore (20-15) will face No. 1 Burlington Central Saturday morning for a berth in the Rochelle sectional.

Kaneland had its season come to an end at 14-19.

“I was kind of dumbfounded,” Coddington said after robbing Mangers of a home run. “I thought it was going over the fence. My coach (Jill Carpenter) always says never to give up on a ball.”

Mangers was unsure if the ball would carry; the north wind present all day that created havoc on several infield pops and fly balls had died noticeably during the Knights’ final at-bat.

“It felt good off my bat, but I’m not sure how far it would go,” Mangers said. “I think that’s the best we’ve played in a long time.”

With three-year pitching ace Delani Vest making her third start of the season for Kaneland, the Knights broke a scoreless tie in their third by an archetypal manufactured run off Foulk (15-6).

Sam Hansen had a leadoff walk and moved into second on Mangers’ perfectly executed sacrifice bunt.

Vest moved Hansen to third with an infield single, and the junior strolled home when Lanie Callaghan laced a single to left.

Vest, who escaped a second-and-third-with-one-out-jam in the second, was looking for her first 1-2-3 inning on the afternoon when the Spartans’ Kelcee Miller singled to open the fourth.

On one of the most critical plays of the day, after Miller was sacrificed safely to second, the Kaneland middle infield let a pop fall harmlessly behind Vest for an infield hit.

Meranda Brashears’ two-out, 2-run single, following a wild pitch, became the biggest hit of nine Sycamore mustered off Vest.

“The bloop hit, wild pitch and hit to left was the whole ballgame,” Kaneland coach Brian Willis said. “But when you put the ball in play, good things happen.”

“I knew it was going to blow back, but I didn’t know it would blow back that much,” Vest said of the Becca Schroeder one-out single.

“It was my bad. Once I turned around, it was too late (to catch the ball).”

Kaneland was incredibly youthful this spring as Rilee Vest and Andrea Potts were the Knights’ only seniors.