St. Charles N. breezes by Geneva
It had only been 15 days since the last time St. Charles North played Geneva, but it could have been 365 and the North Stars might have remembered like yesterday.
St. Charles North lost that first meeting 7-6 in a game it fell behind 7-0. The North Stars wasted little time making sure it didn’t happen again, scoring twice in the first inning and two more times in the second on their way to a convincing 8-1 victory Friday in St. Charles.
“The last game we didn’t play as well as we could,” winning pitcher Shannon Caliri said. “The main thing for our team today was get back and show them how we really play.”
Caliri allowed 1 hit — an infield single by Bridget Weitzel in the fourth — and an unearned seventh-inning run in improving to 5-6. Only 2 balls were hit out of the infield as Caliri became the latest pitcher to quiet the Vikings (11-13, 4-10) after Batavia’s Katie Coleman shut them out Wednesday.
“She deserves a lot of credit,” Geneva coach Greg Dierks said. “We’ve been struggling with our bats. A couple times we got into favorable counts and we didn’t keep the ball fair or didn’t hit it as well as we need to on pitches when we knew she had to come into us and we didn’t take advantage of that. We have been in a rut with our bats. We have to work our way out of that.”
St. Charles North (15-12, 10-3), who leads Elgin by 2 games in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division race with 6 games to go, got to Geneva starter Natalie Erbe early.
Emily Brodner delivered the big blow in the first when she lined a 2-run single into left field to score Sabrina Rabin and Kaitlyn Waslawski.
Delaney Olinger doubled the lead in the second with a 2-run home run to left, her second homer of the season. She jumped on the first pitch, an adjustment she made in her approach.
“Waiting back on the ball was one of the main parts I need to work on and getting ahead in the count,” Olinger said.
St. Charles North broke the game open with a 4-run fifth, a rally started with Rabin’s first homer of the season. Brodner added another RBI single and Abby Howlett plated a run with a grounder.
“Sabrina has really been tearing the cover of the ball lately whether batting practice, against the machine or in games,” North Stars coach Tom Poulin said. “Even her outs are hit hard. And Delaney is battling. She’s had her peaks and valleys like everyone and she’s starting to click again and that just makes us stronger down there near the bottom of the order. She deserves it because she really worked at it.”