Softball: Offense not hard to come by as St. Charles East takes down Glenbard North in slugfest

St. Charles East coach Jarod Gutesha put his girls to the test during the week of April 27th.

During that week, the Saints played in eight games in the span of six days, including a triple header Saturday, where the team went 5-3 over that busy stretch.

After a week like that, it would be easy to think that the team would be a tiny-bit sluggish heading into Monday’s contest against Glenbard North.

Turns out, it was quite the opposite.

The Saints put up 16 hits in the game, including three home runs in the first two innings, and put up multiple runs across five innings to secure a 14-10 victory over the Panthers and avenge a 5-3 loss back on April 18.

“We’re really starting to settle in with our offensive approach,” Gutesha said. “We’ve played more games than anybody else in this conference, and it’s starting to pay off. This team is exciting to watch in May, and they’re going to be tough for everybody that sees them.”

Early in the contest, the Saints (15-12, 4-4 DuKane Conference) relied on the long ball to get on the board. Sophomore Caleigh Higgins got the trend going with a three-run home run in the first inning to give them an early 4-0 lead.

“She’s really started to just get comfortable at the plate,” Gutesha said. “We knew she had it in her, and now she’s going in there and feeling good, which is just scary because we’re starting to click everywhere.”

One inning later, after the Panthers hit two home runs in the bottom half of the first, junior Hayden Sujack and senior Addison Wolf would follow suit with back-to-back solo shots to make it 6-3.

The home run marked Sujack’s 40th long ball of her career, making her the first Saint to achieve the feat. But the South Carolina commit said it was even more special to go back-to-back with Wolf, a Maryville commit.

“We always have this thing where we tell each other to ‘pass the bat,’ ” Sujack said. “It’s always worked because it just held us accountable. So when it was back-to-back like that, it was amazing. It was just a huge team effort.”

After that, the Saints’ attention shifted to putting barrels on the ball and putting together long at-bats. The game plan worked, as six different hitters finished with multiple hits, while five finished with multiple RBI.

“We’ve really made some huge strides to get to this moment,” said Sujack, who finished with two hits and two RBI. “We just kept it super simple at the plate, which is one of my favorite things because it slows the game down a bit. I don’t know what anybody ate or what they did pregame, but I think we’ve got to keep that momentum going

The Panthers (12-4, 4-4) certainly didn’t make it easy for the Saints. Of the nine home runs hit in the game, six of them came off the home team’s bats, with juniors Lauren Kozlovsky, Gianna Whelan and Avery Miller each leaving the yard twice.

“We kind of live and die by the home run with this team,” Panthers coach Josh Sanew said. “We’ve been hitting a lot of them this year, more than I’ve seen in my life. But I thought their approach at the plate was great. All three of them had good, short swings off a power pitcher and the balls flew. You can’t say enough about that approach and attack.”

Squeezed between those three was senior Tru Medina, who had three hits on the day. The Northwestern commit also had a double, which was just a few feet short of going over the wall.

“Usually her not hitting a home run would be the rarest thing about this game,” Sanew said. “But that’s something that we talked about, being able to hit up and down the lineup.”

All of the Panthers’ runs were scored off of the long ball, including all five runs scored in the seventh inning, which came from Kozlovsky and Whelan’s second home runs of the day to give a bit of a threat for the lead at the end.

“I was proud of the way that our team didn’t just lay down there when the game got out of hand a bit,” Sanew said. “It was fun to watch and be a part of this fun game. Sometimes you come a little short in those games, but it’s always a battle with these teams in this conference.”