Pitching down? Not at Downers Grove North
Dominant pitching, it seems, is down across the area this year.
Downers Grove North clearly didn’t get the memo.
UIC recruit Elaine Heflin struck out 13 in just five innings, combining with Dale Ryndak on a 1-hitter as the No. 7 Trojans blanked Wheaton Warrenville South 3-0 on Monday in Wheaton.
The dynamic duo of the junior Heflin and Ryndak, a sophomore, hasn’t allowed an earned run in seven games this year. Heflin (4-0) hasn’t allowed a run period, with 49 strikeouts in 24 innings.
“We’re both great pitchers, we work well together and we complement each other,” Heflin said. “We’ll see how it goes. We just gotta take this one game at a time.”
Heflin missed her sophomore year because of a back injury, but you’d hardly know it watching the tall, strong righty. In fact, Trojans coach Mark Magro said she’s even stronger and better now.
“She’s got a much better curveball now, she’s got that rise ball and she throws a mean changeup. She didn’t have that changeup her freshman year,” Magro said. “I just think she’s in much better shape. She came back stronger. She had that year off and she worked her butt off. You gotta like her. I wouldn’t want to face her.”
Heflin allowed a leadoff single to Cameron Briggs in the first, and Briggs took second on an outfield error on the play. She also walked a pair of batters in the second, but she didn’t blink either time, striking out the side in both innings. It was similar to Saturday, when she gave up 3 early singles to Glenbard East and then shut it down.
Her curve and change are two pitches that have expanded her repertoire, but Heflin’s “baby” is still a hard, riding rise ball that WW South had no answer for.
“I was not happy with that leadoff hit,” Heflin said, “so I buckled down and said ‘No more.’ That rise ball, that’s my favorite pitch, it’s my pride and joy. It was tailing in today. It usually doesn’t.”
Downers Grove North (7-0) scored all of its runs in the first. Carolyn Nojiri hit a groundball single leading off, and after a sacrifice and wild pitch Nojiri scored and Rowan McGuire took second on an infield throwing error. Next up was Sam Yeager, who belted a 2-2 pitch to straightaway center for her fifth homer of the year.
WW South pitcher Sammy Granger (2-3) settled down considerably after that, and only allowed 3 baserunners the rest of the way with 6 strikeouts.
The Tigers (3-6), though, could do nothing with the Trojans’ two pitchers. A young WW South team is 1-5 over its last six games in a tough stretch.
“Sammy pitched well. We’re at a point, right now, where we’re just trying to get better,” Tigers coach Jeff Pawlak said. “Defensively we have to clean up some stuff. They’re good pitchers we faced, but we have to be more disciplined in the box, take better swings and have a better approach.”