Big 7th inning propels Jacobs past Dundee-Crown
Jacobs played a little game of better late than never on Friday, and the Golden Eagles won.
After waiting 20 minutes longer than normal for a bus to take them to Dundee-Crown, the Eagles waited until the top of the seventh inning to break out the offense. But when they did, they did so in a big way.
Trailing the Chargers 4-3 going into its last at-bat, Jacobs sent 10 batters to the plate and scored 7 runs to notch a 10-4 Fox Valley Conference Valley Division softball win.
"My comeback kids do it again," said Jacobs coach Katie O'Brien. "They've been coming from behind all year. They haven't pulled all of them out but they've pulled out some we didn't think they would."
That may have been the case Friday as D-C freshman Sydney Ruggles had frustrated the Golden Eagles (14-16, 5-5) into leaving 8 runners stranded through six innings. In the sixth, Jacobs had left the bases loaded. They had left 4 runners in scoring position prior to the sixth.
But in the seventh, the big guns came out. Freshman Kerri Healy started the inning with a double and scored the tying run on a single from Alexis Addante.
Ruggles proceeded to get a fly out and a pop up from the next two hitters and it appeared the Chargers (12-10, 4-6) would have a chance to win it in the bottom of the seventh for a good-sized home crowd but then not only did the wheels fall off but the whole wagon broke down.
Senior Jessica Powell blasted a double to the left-center field fence to plate Addante with the winning run, but the Eagles were far from done. An infield hit by Jess Mrzlak and a walk to Taylor Belo preceded a 3-base outfield error that made it 8-4 and Emily Borg's 2-run home run to right-center made it 10-4.
That left it up to junior Teaghan Richman to finish things off in the circle, which she did despite giving up a double to freshman Andrea Conway and a single to Claire Weeks to start the bottom of the seventh.
Richman earned the win in relief of Addante, who struggled with control by walking 4 batters in her 1⅔ innings. Even though Richman gave up a 2-run single to Claire Weeks when she entered the game, Richman went on to allow the Chargers just one other single until the two hits in the seventh. She did hit a batter and walk one with one out in the fifth but she got out of it with two groundball outs.
"Before the game I knew I had to be ready and get my mindset right," Richman said. "I just didn't want to give them anything down the middle. I tried to work inside-outside."
"Teaghan hardly warmed up but she did what she needed to do," said O'Brien. "She's a team player who does what we ask her to do."
Sarah Murray had 2 hits including a double and a solo home run for Jacobs, while Borg, Healy, Powell and Mrzlak added 3 hits each to Jacobs' 15-hit attack.
Conway had a 2-run home run, her second of the season, to give the Chargers a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first but not building on a strong start offensively frustrated D-C coach Tracy Beatty.
"I knew going in four runs wouldn't do it," she said. "We didn't hit the ball after the second inning. We weren't disciplined in the box and you gotta make the adjustments. We gotta put more runs on the board."