Glenbard South powers past St. Edward
It would be fair to say that Glenbard South's softball team won Tuesday's game on Monday.
After facing Plainfield Central sophomore standout Brooklyn Daly in a nonconference game on Monday, the Raiders teed off on St. Edward junior and Valparaiso commit Lindsay Zdroik Tuesday, rolling to a 14-0 win in five innings in Metro Suburban West play at the Elgin Sports Complex.
"Absolutely, that prepared us for today," said Glenbard South coach Julie Fonda, whose team lost Monday's game 4-0. "Daly throws comparable to Lindsay and that got us ready for today. They didn't flinch today. We could not have created a better atmosphere in practice. We were very prepared today."
The Raiders (12-4, 6-0) scored an unearned run in the first inning, capitalizing on one of St. Edward's 8 errors in the game. After an uneventful second at-bat, Glenbard South sent 14 batters to the plate in the third, using a combination of the short game and the long ball to score 8 runs and put the game out of reach.
Freshman Mady Carli led off the inning by beating out an infield hit, ahead of bunt singles from Payton Carli and Tricia Weigand that loaded the bases. That's when the long ball took over as junior shortstop Ashley Cohen blasted a grand slam home run to center field that made it a 5-0 game. It was Cohen's second homer of the season and her first high school grand slam.
"The Plainfield Central pitcher was very good and I struggled against her," Cohen said. "I wanted to get better and take the opportunity today to be aggressive and go after (Zdroik). We're always wanting to jump on it and get runners on base and score them."
The Raiders were far from done after Cohen's home run. Winning pitcher Taylor Carli and catcher Mina Marra singled, just before junior Venessa Eichele launched a 3-run bomb to right-center, her first of the season, to make it 8-0 and chase Zdroik (10-4-1) from the circle in favor of sophomore Emily Stapay.
Glenbard South added another unearned run in the inning, then scored four times in the fourth and once in the fifth, totaling 14 hits off the two St. Edward pitchers.
Payton Carli went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI, Weigand was 3-for-3 with an RBI, Marra went 2-for-4 with a double and Mady Carli had 2 hits to lead the Raiders.
Taylor Carli allowed the Green Wave just 3 hits, 2 of them from sophomore Devyn Ernst. She struck out 8 and walked 1 in running her record to 8-2 for the season.
"We didn't play our game today," said Wave coach Jaci Corn, whose team fell to 15-5-1 overall and 5-3 in the MSC West. "We let our mental and physical mistakes affect us and we let (Glenbard South) change our game."