It will be a tough season for hitters in the DuPage Valley

His first DuPage Valley Conference softball game is still 10 days away - but Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum already has sympathy for DVC hitters.

He has an idea to even the score.

"It's time to move the (mound) back to 43 feet (from home plate)," Nussbaum said.

Nussbaum's argument extends beyond the immediate conference season ahead. It's a debate for another day. But it speaks to the quality of pitching you'll see in the DVC this spring.

Every team except for Wheaton Warrenville South brings back their No. 1 starter from last year. And we're not talking some average soft-tossers.

West Chicago sophomore Mary Connolly has a tough act to follow after striking out 295 batters with a 0.66 ERA for last year's DVC champs. Twenty-nine strikeouts her first two starts out shows she's up for the challenge. It's hard to believe Naperville Central's Natalie Wunderlich could improve on last year's 20-6 record and 237 strikeouts - but she has fanned 37 her first three times out.

West Aurora brings back tall left-handed Mississippi State recruit Stephanie Becker. Glenbard North's Hannah Santora perhaps can't rock and fire like Wunderlich and Connolly - but can throw any pitch at any time in the count and has a good understanding of where to put the ball when she is ahead. Wheaton North sophomore Kahla Nolan looks to be much improved.

You really can't look past anybody.

"In my 26 years it's the best pitching the league has ever had," Nussbaum said. "It's the same as last year - except the top four pitchers are all better."

Two teams that don't have a Wunderlich type on the mound are both off to fast starts. WW South has won three games in its final at-bat, and 5-1 Naperville North has its whole lineup back.

Nussbaum and Glenbard North coach Josh Sanew need not be reminded the fine line between winning and losing in the pitching-rich DVC.

Naperville Central played 10 one-run conference games last year, six of them 1-0 scores. All six of Glenbard North's DVC losses came by one run, including two 1-0 defeats to Naperville Central.

"I have to believe that this is one of the toughest conferences to hit in, with all that dominant pitching," Sanew said. "It really leaves the conference wide open because with a dominant pitcher you have a shot to win any game."

Nussbaum, who saw his team's shot at winning the DVC last year slip by with two extra-inning losses to West Chicago, has an even more blunt assessment.

"It's going to be a war every time out," he said. "There are no cupcakes."

And another thing

Under the category of did you know...

St. Francis junior volleyball player Kelsey Robinson, who recently committed to Tennessee, played on the same youth travel softball team (and baseball team in the fifth and sixth grades) with Lake Park senior and Michigan basketball recruit Samantha Arnold, Driscoll senior and Iowa recruit Gigi DiGrazia, the state golf champion and member of the Class 2A girls basketball champions, and West Chicago senior Chrissie Rovtar, a Mississippi State softball recruit and member of the defending DVC softball champs.

That softball team photo sure sounds like a keepsake.

jwelge@dailyherald.com