South Elgin surprises Bartlett

Don't get her wrong, by any means.

South Elgin softball coach Stephanie Katzenberger was very pleased her charges defeated rival Bartlett 4-3 Wednesday afternoon

But was it a big win? Well …

"It's a good win - it's a quality win," said Katzenberger, whose team's roller coaster season went back up the rails Wednesday to improve to 10-13 overall and 7-6 in the Upstate Eight Valley. "And we struggle to get those.

"Our offense has been very inconsistent for us this year, and I tell them before every game, 'If you hit today, you will the ballgame,' " she said. "It's that simple."

That the Storm did, banging out 8 total hits, but none bigger than the 4 collected in the bottom of the fourth inning that plated a pair of runs and broke a 2-2 tie.

Facing high-velocity Bartlett reliever Danielle Kirby with 2 out and Alyssa Hargett on first base, South Elgin got consecutive singles from Rachel Ziemba, Alexa Rogala and Stacy Bellack that drove in Hargett and Ziemba.

That put the Storm up 4-2, and Katzenberger and her team sat back and watched starting pitcher Rachel Weiss and reliever Karli Dobler give up just 3 hits the rest of the way, though Bartlett made it interesting by plating a run in the top of the seventh.

"I knew as soon as we started stringing some hits together, it was going to be a good day for us," Katzenberger said.

That's not to say Weiss and Dobler were slouches on the mound. Hardly.

The duo stranded 10 Bartlett baserunners, including the tying run in the seventh. Weiss threw the first 5 innings, striking out a pair and giving up only single runs in the first and third innings.

Dobler entered in the top of the sixth and gave up Elyse Hickey's double to start the seventh. Hickey came around to score on a single by Suzie Miceli with 2 out, but Dobler ended the game by inducing Sarah Schmitz to ground out to third baseman Taylor Ford.

"My screwball was working for me and my inside pitches in general, especially with the tight strike zone," said Weiss, who got the win and in the process outdueled Kirby, who is her cousin. "It's a major win, especially because it's Bartlett. It's also conference."

"This game was huge," added Dobler, who recorded the save. "It's always great to beat Bartlett. We were so close to beating them last year the first time we played them, so it was good to come out and beat them the first time so we can get them the next time."

South Elgin wasted no time getting on the board in the bottom of the first. With one out, Rogala singled off Bartlett starter Amber Pagan, and Bellack doubled into the left-field corner. Cassidy Westlund grounded out to Pagan, but Rogala scored, moving Bellack to third. Ford then reached on an error, scoring Bellack.

It could have been much worse for Bartlett. Pagan hit Bri Pena with a pitch, prompting a meeting at the mound, and then gave up a single to Amber Derr to load the bases. But she escaped by striking out Hargett.

Bartlett tied the game in the top of the third on Pagan's sacrifice fly that scored Lauren Janczak. But Weiss gave up just 2 hits the rest of her outing, and got help from her fielders with a double play in the fourth.

"All the credit goes to South Elgin," Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "We put a lot of pressure on them. We had runners on every single inning, and their pitchers did a good job moving the ball around. We took a bunch of swings trying to hit home runs with the wind blowing in, instead of trying to hit line drives and hard groundballs, and make them make multiple plays."

It was a disappointing loss, dropping the Hawks' record to 14-7-1 overall and 9-5 in the Upstate Eight, but for Wolfsmith, there was one common theme.

"We gave up two runs in the first inning because we weren't focused," he said. "We didn't come off the bus focused, we didn't warm up focused, we didn't play that first inning focused and they hit us in the mouth."

Rogala paced South Elgin offensively with 2 singles, a run scored and 2 RBI, in addition to reaching on an error in the sixth. Bellack went 2-for-4 with a single, a double and a run scored.

Hickey was Bartlett's offensive leader with 3 walks in addition to her double, and a run scored. Katie Fornoff went 2-for-4 with a single, a double and a stolen base.