Softball: St. Charles East clinches UEC River crown
St. Charles East clinched the Upstate Eight Conference River championship Tuesday by beating the defending champs.
Maddie Candre and Maddy Stout hit early home runs, Sara Campagna delivered a key 2-run double and Katie Arrambide fanned 9 in an 8-3 Saints win over Geneva, who defeated St. Charles East twice last year to win the 2017 title.
"Obviously it's a huge accomplishment but we want to focus on bigger things and make sure we are ready for the postseason," Candre said.
St. Charles East (21-6, 15-1) will head into the postseason next week with plenty of momentum and certainly made a believer of Geneva coach Greg Dierks. The Saints earned the No. 1 seed in the Fremd sectional.
"I told the girls after the game the reason East won the game and won the conference is they are better than us," Dierks said. "They are the best team in the conference, they have proved it. In particular they are swinging the bat aggressively from the first batter up to the ninth batter up and all seven innings. It's a challenge to try to hold them down and most of us haven't been able to do it. That's a credit to them."
Geneva (19-6, 12-4) lost in extra innings in the first meeting with the Saints but fell behind early Tuesday - specifically the Saints' third batter when Candre launched a home run to center off senior Aly Dierks.
Stout followed with a towering home run in the second inning to make it 2-0.
Geneva catcher Katie Keller cut the deficit in half with an opposite field, line drive home run in the third inning, battling back from an 0-2 count. The NIU-bound Keller walked, singled and hit an RBI sacrifice fly in her other at-bats.
The Saints broke the game open with a 6-run fifth inning, a rally started with a walk to Arrambide and an error on a sacrifice bunt. Campagna doubled down the left field line to score both runners, then she came in on Paige Ligocki's single.
"I really wanted to keep it going for my team," Campagna said. "We had a good rally going."
"To see Sara with that big hit was nice," Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said. "We put those runners in position by doing some of the little things. (A) 4-1 (lead) felt really good and then we kept piling on."
The rally continued as Lauren Luna singled and Stout walked to load the bases. Hannah Cozzi cleared them with a single on a play that also included a Geneva throwing error that made it 8-1.
"That's a bad recipe right there," Greg Dierks said of the walk and error to start the inning.
Geneva finally got to Arrambide a little in the seventh inning with Keller's sacrifice fly and an RBI single from Katie Geary but it was not nearly enough to erase the 7-run deficit - or slow down the roll St. Charles East has been on in the Upstate Eight this spring. Only South Elgin was able to beat the Saints.
"Clinching against Geneva, a good team, that was real nice to see," Gutesha said. "It's fun to celebrate a conference championship. Now we start the fun again next week."