Redhawks swipe win from Huskies

The Naperville Central softball team didn't play its best Tuesday afternoon, committing multiple mental errors against cross-town rival Naperville North.

Yet with the score tied at 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth, Naperville Central's Jori Gonzalez executed a heads-up play on the basepaths when her team needed it most, swiping third base and positioning herself to score the game-winning run in the Redhawks' 3-2 victory in Naperville.

Gonzalez led off the inning with a walk before advancing to second base on Maggie Buoy's sacrifice bunt. After reading a Lauren Clouston pitch destined for the dirt, Gonzalez bolted safely into third base, later scoring on a Nicole Kappelman tapper through the infield.

"That was huge. She made a very heads-up play," Buoy said. "(Jori) did a great job just taking advantage of that, and they had no chance at her."

A pair of defensive lapses by Naperville Central (20-6, 6-4 DuPage Valley Conference) helped contribute to both Huskies runs, as the Redhawks at times seemed they would again come up short of the 20-win mark for the season.

"In a game where we made some mistakes, we still overcame those mistakes and were good enough to win," Nussbaum said. "We've lost a couple of DVC games here in a row and it's nice to get a win."

While Naperville Central escaped with the victory, the Redhawks know they can still play better.

"I think they're happy to win, but they're not satisfied necessarily with the way we played," Nussbaum said. "We're capable of playing a better quality game than that.

"They know they have to get better to accomplish the things we want to accomplish."

Naperville North (12-13, 3-7) stranded eight runners on base Tuesday afternoon as its recent trend of dropping 1-run games and struggling with runners on base continued.

"That's the way it's been going, but our girls will battle back," Huskies coach Jerry Kedziora said. "In the last couple weeks, it's just been not getting the big hits. We're hitting less than .100 now with runners in scoring position."

Despite another opportunity gone by the wayside, though, Kedziora remained optimistic that struggles like Tuesday will eventually become a memory.

"They were doing it at the beginning of the year, and that's why we started out real well," he said. "If this team gets hot, other teams are going to be in trouble."