Heard hits, pitches Huntley past Fremd
Huntley pitcher Jori Heard struck out back-to-back Fremd batters with the go-ahead run on third base and one out in the top of the sixth inning and led off the bottom half with an open mind.
"I was just hoping for the best. I really didn't want to strike out," Heard said. "I just wanted to help my team as much as possible."
The Red Raiders' senior helped her team in a big way.
After fouling off a pitch straight back on a 3-1 count, Heard jumped on the next pitch from Fremd senior Gina Dudley for a long home run over the left-field fence. The Raiders tacked on a much-needed insurance run on a heads-up play from Reese Hunkins and held off the Vikings, 3-2, Thursday in their nonconference game.
Heard (1-1), who struck out 16 batters in a season-opening loss to St. Charles North on Monday, finished with 18 strikeouts in the complete-game victory, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits and a walk. The NCAA Division I Valparaiso commit now has a 34:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio over her first 14 innings of the year.
"We let her dictate the game from the very beginning," Fremd coach Josh Teschner said. "You can tell when it comes to the best pitchers in the state, she's in that conversation just like (Huntley's) team should be."
The Raiders (1-1) scored their final run, which turned out to be the game-winning run, on a pair of errors in the sixth. After Hunkins reached on a fielding error, Zoe Doherty laid down a sacrifice bunt and Ava McFadden walked.
After a fly out for the second out, Madi Smith hit a hard ground ball in the infield and an errant throw allowed Hunkins, an Illinois commit, to score Huntley's third run.
Hunkins' run turned out to be crucial because Fremd senior left fielder Ava Jordan led off the top of the seventh with a home run.
"That was a heads-up play and base running by Reese," Huntley coach Mark Petryniec said. "That's a senior leader. She did it all on her own. She read that and got what we needed, the game-winning run."
Huntley scored its first run in the bottom of the first without the benefit of a hit. Junior outfielder Katie Mitchell, a Loyola commit, led off the inning with a walk, stole second, stole third and scored when the throw was missed at third.
Fremd scored its first run in the top of the third on an opposite-field, two-out triple by Arizona State commit Kalyn McCarthy to drive in Sheedy, who singled to start the inning.
McCarthy (2 for 4) had a leadoff double to start the top of the sixth and was sacrificed to third but Heard struck out the last two batters to get out of the jam before coming up to at-bat in the bottom half.
Heard was throwing in the low 60s (mph) Thursday and looked to get stronger as the game went on.
"If I was on the other side, you don't like to see that," Petryniec said.
"You like to see longer at-bats, getting deep into counts. When the weather warms up and she gets her legs under her, she's going to get more impressive."
Dudley allowed 1 earned run on 3 hits in six innings. She struck out five and walked three.
Teschner thought his team did a good job of adjusting to the speed and movement of Heard's pitches in the later innings. Heard's first nine outs were all strikeouts.
"As the game went on, we started adjusting and started putting pressure on them, and that gave us the opportunity to fight back," Teschner said. "It's a shame because I don't think the score is indicative of how well our pitcher threw.
"Gina threw a [heck] of a game. She worked against a perennial power that I am very confident we belong in the same conversation with."