St. Charles North barely misses out on title
EAST PEORIA — It was the highest-scoring state championship game in Illinois softball history.
St. Charles North will remember it for the run that wasn't.
On a bases-loaded grounder to short with two outs in the sixth, North Stars senior Annie Korth was called out on a razor-close play at first. Moline held on for a 9-8 win in Saturday's wild Class 4A state championship at EastSide Centre.
“I think it all broke our hearts a little bit,” St. Charles North senior Amanda Ciran said. “It's a tough call, but you can't let the umpire decide the game for you.”
St. Charles North (32-4), down 4-0 and 9-3 early, had loaded the bases with one out in the sixth, still trailing 9-8 after successive singles by Loren Cihlar, Taylor Russell and Ashley Seering.
Natalie Capone dropped down a squeeze bunt, Moline third baseman Jordan de los Reyes scooping and firing home for the close force just ahead of Cihlar.
Korth, whose walkoff homer Friday vaulted St. Charles North into Saturday's final, followed with a grounder to short. Moline's Brittny Drish hesitated on the release, then threw out Korth as she crossed the bag.
St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin asked for an appeal, but the call stood.
“There's a million what-ifs from the first inning to the end of the seventh,” Poulin said. “The game never hinges on one play.”
Russell's emotions, losing out on the school's first state championship, were understandably more raw.
“Anger,” she said. “Anger is what I felt about that call.”
Drish could understand the North Stars protests.
“It looked like she just beat out the throw,” Drish said. “It was so close. Their team would have said she was safe and our team would have definitely said she was out.”
Drish was at the center of a stunning early offensive explosion.
Moline's first three batters reached to start the game, and Drish followed with a grand slam over the right-center fence and 4-0 lead.
St. Charles North answered with 3 runs in its half of the first, Russell's gapper double scoring the first run and Capone squeezing in Russell.
Moline (28-8-1) came right back with 5 runs in the second. The Maroons batted around, Jenna Winthurst's 2-run double one-hopping the center field fence making it 9-3.
Two St. Charles North errors the first two innings added fuel to the Moline bats' fire.
In 35 games prior to Saturday, St. Charles North had given up 4 or more runs just three times. North Stars Loyola-bound ace Ciran (24-2) had just twice, the second time when her team rallied from down 4-0 to DeKalb in the supersectional for a 12-4 win.
The two teams' 17 combined runs were a championship game record, as were Russell's 5 RBI.
“I knew we were gonna have a lot of runs in this game,” Drish said, “but no, I don't think anyone could have ever expected this.”
Perhaps it was drawing on the supersectional experience, or maybe it was a team stocked with seniors playing together for the last time — but the North Stars didn't fold.
Russell's 3-run homer in the bottom of the second pulled them within 9-6, and Russell beat out an infield single in the fourth to score Caitlin Khoury. Ashley Seering, like Russell 4-for-4 in the game, followed with an RBI triple into the right field corner for a 9-8 game.
“I'm very proud of our team,” Russell said. “We could have dropped dead and died after that first inning, but we didn't. That's who we are.”
Moline's championship is its sixth, one shy of the state record held by Casey-Westfield.
St. Charles North still searches for one, but won't soon forget these seniors and this comeback.
“We fought hard, and once they got to 9 runs we wanted to fight even harder,” said Ciran. “We wanted to prove that we could do it. But as hard as we fought, it just didn't come out the way we wanted.”