Benet comes through
Benet has spent the first two weeks of the season bludgeoning opponents with its bats.
This win might be even more satisfying.
Silenced for five innings, the No. 5 Redwings awoke with a tying run in the sixth and then broke it open with 4 in the eighth to beat No. 11 Downers Grove South 5-2 on Thursday in Downers Grove.
The Redwings (6-0) responded to their toughest test to date and relished the challenge.
“The kids came through,” Benet coach Jerry Schilf said. “This is the first time I’m leaving the field this year feeling good. The other games, yes we had stats, but I’d rather win 1-0. We played a quality team, we were neck-and-neck through seven innings and then we took advantage when we had opportunities.”
Benet had scored 71 runs over its first five games, putting up double-digit totals in each of those. But Downers Grove South’s Aleisha Bozek limited the Redwings to just 3 walks and a single through five innings. The Mustangs (1-3), who Benet beat in last year’s sectional final en route to its third-place finish at state, scratched across a run in the fifth. After a couple singles a two-out flyball that was dropped in left allowed Kristina Airdo to come home with the game’s first run.
Benet answered in the next half-inning. Maeve McGuire sliced a two-strike double to left leading off, and with two outs scored on Julianne Rurka’s opposite-field single to right.
“She was a little quicker than some of the pitchers we’ve seen,” Rurka said. “I just wanted to keep the rally going.”
In the eighth Benet No. 9 hitter Ali Michalik beat out an infield single to start things, and McGuire lined a first-pitch single to right. After a sacrifice bunt and a Kendall Duffy sacrifice fly to score the go-ahead run, Rurka delivered another RBI single to right.
“When people start hitting, it gets contagious,” Rurka said. “We just all stayed positive throughout the game and kept with it. This was probably our most fun game. Scoring a lot is nice, but it’s good to get that experience of playing in these close games.”
Freshman Stephanie Abello padded the lead with a 2-run homer to right, and Benet needed it in the bottom half.
Downers Grove South strung together three straight one-out singles, the third from Katy LaCivita scoring Danielle Trezzo and bringing the tying run to the plate. But Benet’s Molly Moran set down the next two batters, her fifth strikeout ending it.
Perhaps overshadowed by Benet’s bats, new Redwings No. 1 Moran (6-0) has quietly thrown four shutouts in the season’s early going and kept her team in it Thursday.
“That’s pretty darn good,” Schilf said. “She’s not only proved to her teammates, but I think she’s proved to herself that hey, I belong here and I can help this team win.”
The final score doesn’t show it, but Bozek (0-3) was very strong for Downers Grove South, striking out eight.
“She was throwing the ball a lot better and using her legs a lot better than she was against Lockport on Tuesday,” Mustangs coach Ron Havelka said. “I thought she pitched pretty well today and she changed up speed every once in a while. You have to with Benet.”
Despite his team’s 1-3 record, Havelka is hardly discouraged. The three losses haven’t exactly come against lesser lights — Elgin, Lockport and Benet.
“Our girls competed well. That’s a good thing for the future,” Havelka said. “If we play like that, we’ll be real tough down the line.”