Reunited duo pitches Waubonsie past Meadows
As 8-year-olds, Jordan Kurth and Shannon Hohman were teammates on a championship team in the Naperville Diamonds Softball Association.
Five years later, they have reunited on the Waubonsie Valley softball team.
And they are still winning.
You might be hard-pressed to recall the last time a pair of freshmen combined for a pitching victory but that’s what happened for the Warriors in their 14-1 six-inning victory at Rolling Meadows on Wednesday.
In her first varsity appearance, left-hander Kurth got the win by throwing three scoreless innings and retiring the final seven batters she faced, including 3 strikeouts.
Hohman, a southpaw, went the final three innings, giving up a home run run to shortstop Sam Anderson and striking out six, including all three batters looking in the bottom of the sixth inning.
“I am so happy for them (Kurth and Hohman),” said Warriors No. 3 hitter Amanda Minahan, who missed the cycle by a home run while going 3-for-4 and reaching base and scoring four times. “They are amazing pitchers. We can always rely on them for strikeouts.”
Waubonsie Valley coach Alyson Kelley couldn’t be happier with her freshmen duo.
“Pitching has been kind of our shortcoming the last few years,” Kelley said. “We haven’t had a lot of depth. Now, we’ve gotten lucky and have four freshmen pitchers in the program, two on our varsity, one on junior varsity and one on the freshman team.”
In addition to the pitching, Kelley saw some hitting, too.
Leading the way with Minahan were Amanda Lack (3-for-4, double, RBI) and Erin Hohman (1-for-2, 3 runs, RBI).
Shannon Hohman and sophomore Meghan Grannan each belted their first homers.
Shannon Hohman hit a solo blast over the left field fence with two outs in the fifth and Grannan blasted a 3-run shot just inside the left field foul pole with two outs in the sixth.
“Everyone was on their games,” added Minahan, a junior who has committed to Southern Alabama. “I’m proud of my team because everyone backs each other up.”
The Warriors played defense, too.
Chloe Prodanovic and Grace Skorin started the game with singles for Meadows (1-1) and Josie Suchecki reached on an error to load the bases with no outs.
But Kurth got the first out on a grounder to third baseman Erin Hohman, who threw to catcher Carly Sass for the putout.
The next batter flew out to right fielder Mel Koulus, who fired home to Sass to make the tag on Skorin.
Skorin was sidelined the rest of the game after injuring her knee on the play at the plate.
“She got pretty banged up,” said Meadows coach Tony Wolanski. “We’ll see what happens (for today’s game with visiting Libertyville at 11 a.m.).
“Unfortunately, we are going to have days like this. But we will keep working hard to improve. The one thing we need to do better is match the other team’s intensity.”
Kelley said it was important for her team (1-1) to get a win after a 4-2 loss to Naperville Central last week.
“I know it was tough for Rolling Meadows because they had a lot of kids on spring break (the Mustangs were missing five players, including three starters),” Kelley said. “But we really needed this win to boost our confidence.”