Softball: Weather gets best of South Elgin, Bartlett

There was no beating the Storm Wednesday afternoon.

Not the South Elgin Storm.

A line of heavy thunderstorms forced the suspension of the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division softball game between host South Elgin (10-9, 9-3) and Bartlett (14-8, 8-4) with the Hawks ahead 1-0 after 1½ innings of play.

After a 40-minute delay at the outset due to the first round of storms passing through South Elgin, the game began at 5:10 p.m. with Hawks leadoff hitter Charlotte Linnartz reaching on a soft line single up the middle.

After a strikeout and walk to Taylor Rotondo, Linnartz stole third and scored on Janelle Ulaszek's sacrifice fly.

Ulaszek worked out of a mini-jam in the bottom half of the inning.

Storm leadoff hitter Casey Brennan walked and advanced to second on a 1-out free pass to McKenna Eichholz.

South Elgin's threat ended on back-to-back fly balls to Hawks center fielder Anna Tomillo.

Storm left fielder Geneva Pollman caught 3 consecutive fly outs in the top of the second before the umpires suspended play at 5:40 p.m. due to lightning.

"You try to get these games in because you hate to push things back but we knew this stuff was coming," Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "I'm so impressed with the field here (at South Elgin). It took that water and was playing well. It was a little sticky but it was OK."

The game was Bartlett's 10th in as many days.

"Games are backlogged so you try and get them in," said Wolfsmith said. "All the coaches want to and all the umpires want to but ultimately you get to the safety question. We've got to keep people safe.

"Since we had to wait at least 30 minutes (after every lightning strike), it was going to push us past 6 o'clock. Then we were going to start dealing with darkness issues because it's overcast. We'll pick it up where it's at - the bottom of the second with us on top 1-0."

South Elgin coach Brad Reynard knows the drill all too well this season.

"You can't control it," he said. "I used to get upset about the weather but I'm too old for that. We were looking forward to it (playing Bartlett). The kids were sky high."

The Storm have also experienced a busy slate of games recently.

"We had six in six (days) last week and six in six this week," said Reynard. "Our kids are tired but it's one of those springs.

"We're pretty caught up as far as conference games. As for the nonconference games, that's another story but we'll worry about that later."

No make-up date has been determined.