DeKalb shocks No. 1 Cary-Grove
ROCKFORD — The sun bouncing off the limestone of Rockford Guilford’s softball field Saturday wasn’t even close to being as hot as the DeKalb Barbs.
Riding the continued heroics of freshman right-hander Katie Kowalski, DeKalb’s amazing run through the postseason continued, this time at the expense of Cary-Grove, the No. 1 team in the Daily Herald Top 20, which saw its season end suddenly in a 3-0 loss.
“They did what they needed to do,” said Cary-Grove coach Tammy Olson of the Barbs. “We played a good game but DeKalb played a great game.”
Thus, the Barbs (31-4) will head home to Mary M. Bell Field at Northern Illinois University, where they will face St. Charles North (30-3) in the 6:15 p.m. supersectional on Monday.
“It’s amazing,” DeKalb coach Jeff Davis said of the program’s first sectional championship.
Amazing is how the Barbs have played throughout the postseason, one in which its defense has committed just 3 harmless errors in 28 innings and Kowalski (29-2) has been next to untouchable, running her postseason scoreless streak to 16 innings.
“We just couldn’t adjust,” said Cary-Grove senior Emma Gaulke, whose first-inning double was one of just 3 Cary-Grove hits in the game. “We kept hitting long balls and we couldn’t shorten up.”
Cary-Grove (30-2) hit several balls that likely would have been over a 200-foot fence but Guilford’s fence is estimated at 225 feet, meaning many of those bombs — 9 flyball outs to be exact — were caught instead. That included one off the bat of sophomore losing pitcher Lindsay Efflandt (28-2), who hit one high and deep in the second inning that DeKalb center fielder Sabrina Killeen caught reaching over the fence.
“We hit a lot of long balls today and we didn’t adjust to what we needed to do,” Olson said. “The girls played a great game, I just wish we’d have hit shorter. How often do you ask for that?”
As expected, the game was a pitchers’ duel from the outset, although DeKalb made Efflandt work harder than the Trojans made Kowalski. DeKalb left 7 runners on base through four innings, five of them in scoring position.
But the tide turned in the top of the fifth and washed away Cary-Grove in the sixth.
DeKalb senior Dani Thibault, who was 3-for-4, led off the inning with a single and was sacrificed to second by Kelli Gerace. After a fly out for the second out, the Barbs broke the deadlock when Jess Townsend lined a single to right-center, scoring the game’s first run.
The Barbs then made it 3-0 in the top of the sixth, doing all the damage with two outs. No. 9 hitter Amysha Guy started the rally with a bloop single over third and Killeen followed with a bunt single. Thibault then ripped a double to the fence to score both runners and give DeKalb and Kowalski a 3-0 lead with six outs to get.
“It felt really good,” said Thibault. “I knew I had to get a hit and drive in at least one run. I just reached out and threw my bat at it.”
“Dani was fantastic today,” Davis said. “We had opportunities and I knew it was just going to be a matter of time before broke through. We finally got to them.”
Kowalski cruised through Cary-Grove’s final two at-bats, allowing only a single to senior Alexis Haley with two outs in the sixth. Kowalski got five of the final six outs on balls hit in the air, the final out of the game coming on her fourth strikeout of the game, sending the large DeKalb fan base into a frenzy.
“It’s a super feeling,” Kowalski said. “I didn’t feel as fast as I could have been today but I felt like I was hitting my spots.”
For Cary-Grove, which hadn’t been shut out since a 3-0 loss to Jacobs on April 28 of last season, it was a disappointing end to a season in which the Trojans clearly had their sites set on a Final Four appearance in East Peoria next weekend.
“We didn’t go out on a bad note,” Gaulke said. “There’s nothing to complain about, but it’s not what we wanted.”
Efflandt struck out eight, walked one and allowed 9 hits for the Trojans, who return six starters next season.