Softball: Surging Antioch slugs its way past Grant

The past four springs for Anthony Rocco and the softball program at Antioch have been nothing short of amazing.

The Sequoits have won three consecutive Northern Lake County Conference crowns, four straight sectional titles, been to three straight Class 3A Final Fours and made it to back-to-back Class 3A championship games. They have a 125-19 record.

With that in hand, an 0-6 start by this spring's Sequoits squad seemed to be out of step with their recent success.

However, those records can sometimes be deceiving as included in those defeats were losses to conference leaders like Marengo and traditional powers like Huntley.

And like they have over the past couple of weeks, Antioch is proving to friend and foe alike they have every intention of being in the mix of things this season. They demonstrated that in a 13-3, five-inning win at Grant that allowed them to leave Fox Lake with their fifth straight win as well as a share of first place in the NLCC.

"I'm just proud of how things are coming together," Rocco said. "The hitting has been doing a great job. Both pitchers (today) did a great job. We're real positive and got great energy. It hasn't been always the prettiest, but all that matters is getting that win at the end of the day."

Sophomore center fielder Tegan Schuler got things going for Antioch with her game-opening round-tripper that would be the first of three homers by the Sequoits as part of an eight-run first that saw them take advantage of a wind that gusted as high as 20 miles per hour.

Junior shortstop Claire Schuyler added a three-run home run three batters later followed by a grand slam from Schuler later in the frame that completed the scoring barrage.

The Sequoits (5-6, 2-0) added four more in their half of the third courtesy of consecutive RBI doubles from Schuyler and junior catcher Sam Hillner.

Junior catcher Addison Webb added a solo shot in the top of the fourth for Antioch as it ended up with 10 hits on the afternoon.

It also received a solid effort on the mound from both junior Lillie Glenn and freshman Addison Osbourne as they combined to toss a six-hitter against Grant (8-5-1, 1-1).

The host Bulldogs got on the board with a run in each of the final three innings led by sophomore first baseman Riley O'Grady who drove in two of their three runs including a solo homer in the fifth.

Schuyler, who finished the day going 2-for-3 at the plate, talked about how the program's past run of success has allowed them to be able handle whatever adversity comes their way.

"Coming out to start this season we started out playing (good) teams so I think that was a very rough start for us especially with younger pitching, but we never gave up,“ Schuyler said. ”I know we have a very determined team. We've always had that throughout the program so we just want to keep our (successful) streak going."