Benet ends Naperville North’s run

Throw out the regular season.

Naperville North lived up to that saying this spring, and it has its girls soccer and boys volleyball teams state tourney surprises and its softball team regional champs for the first time since 1996.

Karma caught up to the Huskies Wednesday.

Maeve McGuire went 3-for-5 and drove in 2 runs, Allyson Staats threw a 4-hitter and No. 5 seed Benet blasted mistake-plagued No. 8 Naperville North 10-1 in the Class 4A Oswego East sectional semifinal.

Naperville North shut out Benet 1-0 on April 13 and came in off an upset of top seed Downers Gove North.

“I definitely did not see this coming,” Staats said.

The red-hot Redwings (28-10) are 16-2 since May 1, and will play for their first sectional title since 2005 on Saturday versus Naperville Central or Downers Grove South. Benet lost to the Redhawks 10-2 and beat the Mustangs 2-0, both games early in the year.

“The girls continue to get better every game we play,” Benet coach Jerry Schilf said, “and like I told them, ‘Don’t be satisfied with today because that’s not our goal. Our goal is down the road.’”

Naperville North (18-13), meanwhile, committed an uncharacteristic 6 errors, and a missed tag on a delayed Benet steal allowed the Redwings to score their second run in the first inning.

“We had won eight of our last 10 games because we’ve played great defense,” Huskies coach Jerry Kedziora said, “but we came out and gave them some runs. It just wasn’t our day.”

The game may have tipped in Benet’s favor with a key Redwings defensive play in the top of the first. Bella Masini drew a one-out walk for the Huskies and stole second. With two out Tara Degl’Innocenti singled to left, but Benet left fielder Ali Michalik threw Masini out at the plate.

“That was definitely a momentum-changer,” Staats said. “It was a great throw, especially because Ali didn’t play much outfield before this season (she played third base as a freshman). She’s come such a long way.”

Julianne Rurka singled in Kendall Duffy in the bottom half for the game’s first run, and McGuire singled in Marissa Panko with two outs in the third to make it 3-0. Panko walked with one out in the fourth, and after a sacrifice McGuire waited on an Emily Dieckmann changeup and doubled into the right-center field gap to score Panko, making it 4-0.

“I worked on hitting changeups after that (first Naperville North) game,” McGuire said. “I really worked on hitting my inside, because that’s where I struggled against her.”

Benet tacked on an unearned run in the fifth, then batted around in a 5-run sixth.

Staats (26-9), who struck out two, allowed a two-out single to Kathleen Hahne in the second, then set down 11 in a row before Sammy Marshall’s bunt single in the sixth. Staats got stellar defense behind her from the freshman shortstop-third base tandem of Panko and Rurka, who made 11 error-less putouts.

“Marissa played as good a shortstop as you want to see,” Schilf said.

Perhaps fitting, Marshall’s last high school at-bat was a bunt single, the Western Illinois recruit stole second and scored the Huskies’ only run on an error.

“It was a historic year for our team,” Kedziora said. “We’ll definitely have some big shoes to fill.”