South Elgin springs upset on Lake Zurich at Fremd
From the first inning, it was clear this was going to be a pretty wild softball game between No. 5 seed Lake Zurich and No. 11 South Elgin Wednesday afternoon in Class 4A regional semifinal play at Fremd.
The Storm jumped ahead of Lake Zurich 2-0 in the top of the first before falling behind 4-3 after four innings in this slugfest.
But persistence paid off in the end for South Elgin as the Storm scored 3 runs on 2 hits in the top of the fifth before adding an insurance run in the sixth en route to a 7-4 upset victory over the Bears.
The Storm (14-19) will play No. 3 Fremd (29-7) for the regional championship at 10 a.m. Saturday. Lake Zurich closed out its season with a 24-10 record.
South Elgin leadoff hitter Victoria Watt reached base on an error to open the game before Alyssa Buddle singled to center field with one out. Watt scored on an RBI single by winning pitcher Sam Bolin before a fielder's choice RBI by Brittany Koss with two outs staked the Storm to an early 2-0 lead.
The Bears bounced back in the bottom of the second when Christina Sandstedt and Carlee Parsons opened the inning with singles as pinch runner Vivian Juarez moved all the way to third on a perfect bunt by Parsons.
Then when Parsons went to steal second, a throwing error allowed Juarez to score the first run. Parsons moved to third on Kasey Roe's bunt before scoring on an infield hit by McKenna Larson to tie the game at 2-2.
The Storm regained a 3-2 lead when Watt doubled and teammate Kara Rodriguez tripled to right field off of Shannon McPeek, who worked out of the jam with no further damage thanks to a pop out to the catcher and a 4-5 double play to end the top of the third.
“I'm very happy with the way we played and after making a couple of errors early we didn't put our heads down,” said South Elgin coach Jason Schaal, whose team was outhit 11-10 overall. “Lake Zurich has a phenomenal team and we had to come out and play as a team and be aggressive. This is the fourth time we have been to the regional finals in only the sixth year of our program.”
The Bears answered South Elgin's surge in the bottom of the fourth when Sandstedt led off with a double to right-center.
An RBI single by Parsons scored Juarez before a two-out RBI single by pinch hitter Sara Gazdacka drove in pinch runner Maddie Minneci for a 4-3 lead. But that was all Lake Zurich would score as Bolin stranded 2 runners to end the threat.
“We just didn't always capitalize with the runners in scoring position,” said Lake Zurich coach Michaela Towne, whose team left 6 runners on base. “This team is so much more than just this game today. It's tough to get upset in the first round, but I can not ask for more from our four seniors.”
The Storm put together what proved to be the winning rally in the top of the fifth when pinch-hitter Sam Helton led off with a double to right field.
Paige Allen followed with a walk before Rodriguez reached base when McPeek's throw to third on a grounder back to the mound was late, leading to bases loaded with only one out.
Buddle got the game-winning hit on a 2-run bloop double down the right-field line for a 5-4 advantage before a fielder's choice RBI by Bolin made the score 6-4 heading into the bottom of the fifth.
Koss walked and scored on an RBI single to center by Allen in the top of the sixth before Bolin got out of the bottom of the sixth with a 1-6-3 double play to keep the lead at 7-4.
Bolin retired the first two batters she faced in the bottom of the seventh before Sandstedt lined out to second base with runners on first and second to end the game.
“I feel like we all wanted to get a win, especially the seniors,” said Bolin, who is one of four seniors. “We had a rocky start to the season, but now we're playing good so we wanted to win no matter what.”