St. Charles North dodges Geneva's comeback

St. Charles North had one final anxious moment against Geneva on Wednesday afternoon.

The North Stars had a 3-run lead when the Vikings' Anna Radabaugh strode to the plate with Anna Geary and Sarah Baurer aboard with two outs in the top of the seventh.

Radabaugh hit a drive to the deepest recesses of right-center field.

But St. Charles North center fielder Kaitlyn Waslawski literally backed into the wall to squeeze the final out of the North Stars' 5-2 Upstate Eight Conference River softball victory.

With the victory in St. Charles, the North Stars (15-2, 10-2) not only won their seventh straight game but also remained tied atop the league standings with St. Charles East while dropping Geneva (12-5, 8-3) a game back.

"It was a bomb," said Waslawski, who preserved the victory for her freshman sister Jillian (5-2). "Abby (Howlett) was talking to me the whole time from right field, telling me where the fence was."

The elder Waslawski, a senior, also had the key hit of the contest.

Geneva starting pitcher Emily Plocinski stranded the bases loaded the first two innings, but Waslawski did not make it three in a row in the bottom of the third.

Waslawski hit a hard smash up the middle to score Allison Hausl and Amanda James and double the North Stars' lead to 4-0.

Erin Nemetz had scored earlier in the inning on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Alexandra Millett.

"I love (Kaitlyn) at the plate, batting righty with runners in scoring position," St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin said. "She is who you want up there."

"I tried to take (the at-bat) pitch-by-pitch, being selective while I was up there," Waslawski said. "I wanted to hit it hard up the middle."

The North Stars opened the scoring in their half of the first on an RBI double by Allison Moberg, but it could have been far worse if not for the six stranded runners to open the first two at-bats.

"You always worry that it might haunt you," Poulin said of the lost opportunities. "We put ourselves in position to break the game open but couldn't get that timely hit."

Geneva coach Greg Dierks certainly felt grateful to be down a lone run.

"Thirteen (St. Charles North) batters the first two innings," Dierks said. "We maxed out everything we could to be down only 1-0. We were very lucky. They could have busted it open early, but we didn't take advantage of it."

Geneva sliced its deficit in half in the top of the fourth when Madison Keith had two-out run-scoring single to augment an earlier run on a throwing error.

But James' final plate appearance closed out the scoring as the North Stars' second baseman parked her fourth home run of the spring to dead center in the fifth.

"I knew we needed more insurance runs after the inning or two before," James said. "Every approach at the plate for me, I just try to hit the ball hard."