Burlington's Gaylord hits 3 homers to sink Kaneland
It appears that Burlington Central's Brooke Gaylord is making up for some lost time.
After missing the majority of her freshman year with an injury, Gaylord has enjoyed quite a start to her sophomore softball campaign.
Gaylord went 4-for-4 with 3 home runs and 4 RBI to help lift the Rockets (1-1) to a 10-5 nonconference victory over Kaneland (0-3) Wednesday afternoon in Maple Park.
“I had no home runs last year and yesterday I had one and today I hit three,” said Gaylord. “It's a nice start to the year.”
The 5-foot-3 dynamo began her day at the plate by belting a 2-run, second-inning home run over the fence in left-center to tie the game at 2-2.
Her second home run, a solo shot in the fourth, put the Rockets on top 3-2 and on the very next pitch, teammate Sarah Kisch followed suit with a home run of her own to almost the same identical spot in left-center to make it 4-2.
In the fifth, Gaylord smacked her third consecutive home run over the right-center fence to tie the game at 5-5.
“I kind of just went with the flow and everything worked out,” said Gaylord. “Every time I've ever hit a home run, you don't expect it. You're just trying to make contact. It's basically an accident.”
Rockets coach Cray Allen knows Gaylord's performance was anything but accidental.
“I love her,” said Allen. “She has looked great in the gym and she has looked great in practices. She works her tail off. Last year, she got hurt and missed about 20 games so this year coming in she had ground to make up.
“I think as she continues to get experience she's going to be a whirlwind.”
Burlington Central turned the game around with a 5-run sixth, capitalizing on a pair of Kaneland throwing errors as well as a 2-run single by Emily Bell and Rebecca Roscher's RBI single.
“We've played 21 innings this year and we've played 20 good innings,” said Kaneland coach Brian Willis. “We had one bad inning today. But they've got to know at this level that you have one bad inning, this is what's going to happen out there. You can't give a quality team extra outs.
“You fight all the way back to take the lead and you're six outs away from winning, and then you give them six or seven outs in that inning. You're going to watch a one-run lead go away fast.”
Gaylord, who also got the win with 5 innings of work as the Rockets' starting pitcher, led off the seventh with a bunt single and later scored on Lauren King's run-producing groundout.
“We've worked on her small ballgame all off-season,” said Allen. “She had a plan at the plate today. We all have confidence in her. She's going to be a good one before her days are done at Central.”
Freshman Angie Morrow tossed a pair of scoreless innings of relief for the Rockets.
Ally O'Herron had a 2-run single, while starting pitcher Delani West added a triple and single for the Knights. Alexis Villarreal suffered the loss for Kaneland.
“Delani has had the flu all week,” said Willis. “She didn't have much in her tank to start the game but she gave us what she could.”