Softball: Montini starts strong but can’t hold on in 3A supersectional loss to St. Laurence
The magical postseason run by the Montini softball team came to a heartbreaking end Monday at the Class 3A Benedictine supersectional.
The Broncos, who had outscored their opponents 34-3 in the playoffs leading up to their game against St. Laurence, fell victim to a late comeback by the Vikings.
Montini took an early lead, only to see the Vikings rally for a 6-2 win.
“I was so confident that we had more games to go,” said Broncos senior second baseman Katherine Filkowski. “I love my teammates so much, and I just wanted a few more games with them. I’ve never met people who have shown me so much love and so much support.
“We’ve been crushing teams, and I think honestly we haven’t played a lot of close games recently. It was a matter of us trying to overcome ourselves. It’s the little things, both teams played a really good game, but I think defensively, they (St. Laurence) had a better game than we did.”
Vikings coach Teagan Walsh was over the moon after her team’s victory.
“They’ve been battling like this all postseason,” she said of her squad, “so I’m not surprised by this one bit. They don’t give up, and any time the score shifts, I’m confident they’re going to come back. They’ve got the fight, they’ve got the grit, and they’ve got each other’s backs.”
Montini opened the scoring in the bottom of the first on an RBI single by sophomore Bridget Ryan.
After St. Laurence (23-7) tied the contest on a line drive home run off the bat of Vanessa Kates that cleared the center field fence, the Broncos took the lead again in the bottom of the second. A Vikings passed ball allowed Montini sophomore Cedona Barrett to score the go-ahead run.
But that was all the Broncos (19-17) could muster on the offensive end, and the Vikings plated five more runs, helped along by a couple of Montini miscues in the field and three more hits from Kates, who was 4-for-4 in the game.
Montini got two runners on base in the bottom of the seventh, but a couple of sparkling defensive stops by St. Laurence on bang-bang plays ended the game, and minutes later the Vikings were hoisting the supersectional plaque.
The defeat ended the careers of Broncos seniors Ariana Macias, Liliana Aumann, and Filkowski.
“They’re just awesome kids,” said Montini coach Amy Bukovsky of the trio. “They’ve gone through coaching changes and all sorts of stuff since they’ve been here, and to end their careers doing this (making it to the Elite Eight) is just awesome. A lot of our success comes from the leadership of those three kids.”
Filkowski will now continue her softball career at Wisconsin-Green Bay, where she’ll major in psychology. She had two of the Broncos’ nine hits in the loss, including a double.
She’s been a starter all four years for Montini, and after the game, she reflected back to when she was a freshman, just starting out.
“I was nervous going into today’s game,” Filkowski said, “but back then (as a frosh) I was nervous for every game. Now I have more confidence, and I wish I could just go back and give my freshman self a hug.
“A big thing for me this year was taking our freshman players under my wing, and trying to make sure they didn’t feel (the nerves) that I did back then.”
St. Laurence will play Providence at 10 a.m. Friday in the state semifinals in Peoria.