Special day for Love as Dundee-Crown splits
Dundee-Crown senior Melany Love has a lot of incentive to make her final high school softball season one to remember.
Coming off shoulder surgery on Aug. 9, 2011, Love returned to game action for the first time on Saturday when the Chargers opened their season with a nonconference doubleheader at Larkin, the Royals winning the opener 10-0 in five innings before D-C came back with an 8-2 win in Game 2.
And right there behind the backstop was the watchful eye of Love’s father, Rick.
Not so unusual for a player’s dad to plop down behind the backstop to watch their kid play, right? Well, in this case it was. Rick Love, who assisted D-C coach Tracy Beatty with many behind-the-scenes duties the past few years, and who helped coach Melany through several years of travel softball, suffered a serious stroke last summer. Through many months of agonizing and painful rehab, looking forward to seeing his daughter play softball this spring was one of the driving forces behind Rick Love’s recovery. He got to do that Saturday and his daughter delivered with her hitting, pitching and fielding in helping D-C earn a split of its season-opening games.
“It helped a lot,” said Melany Love, tears welling in her eyes, of her dad being at Saturday’s games. “I’m fighting through the (shoulder) pain for him. He says he’s coming to every game.”
Pitching for the first time since her surgery, Love started Saturday’s second game, going the first 3 innings and the final two for the win. She allowed just 1 hit in those 5 innings and had 4 strikeouts and no walks. In one of the two innings she didn’t pitch, she played center field and made a sensational diving catch of Beth Barry’s sinking line drive. At the plate, Love was 2-for-4 with 2 runs scored and an RBI.
“She’s an outstanding player for us,” said Beatty of Love. “Coming off the surgery I didn’t want to use her too much today but she did an outstanding job.”
Love says the shoulder is still painful but it’s her senior season and she’s ready to go.
“It still aches some but I’m trying to work through it,” she said. “I’m excited for the season.”
And for a chance to play the one position she loves to play when she’s not pitching — center field.
“I never really got to play outfield before but now we have a surplus of infielders and center field is my favorite position,” she said, adding about the diving catch, “I love doing that.”
Dundee-Crown jumped on Larkin (1-2) with 3 runs in the top of the first inning of the nightcap as Love and sophomore Mallory Schilf led off with singles. With one out, Love scored on Jessie Lewandowski’s RBI single and when Larkin made one of its 5 errors in the game, Schilf came home to make it 2-0. Freshman Lauren Lococo then reached on another error and scored on an RBI single from sophomore Carly Stallings to make it a 3-0 game.
D-C made it a 4-0 game in the second, junior Amanda Eissler driving home sophomore Abbigail Perillo who had doubled to lead off the inning. The Chargers added a run in the fifth on Lewandowski’s second RBI of the game, then three more in the sixth with Love and Lewandowski driving in runs. Sophomore Lauren Mercado came off the bench to get 2 hits in the game for D-C and Lewandowski was 3-for-3.
“I can’t tell you how good it feels,” said Beatty of gaining an early win. “The lower part of our order came through and everyone contributed.”
Nikki Banks had 2 of Larkin’s 3 hits, both doubles, and scored both the Royals’ runs. Danielle Bauer and Beka Harrington had RBI for Larkin. Lexi Smithberg suffered the loss for the Royals.
Game 1 was all Larkin. The Royals used a 3-run home run to left from Banks to ignite a 4-run first inning and they never looked back. Smithberg was 3-for-4 with an RBI, Jaclyn Saurbaugh was 2-for-3 with a double, Alex Buhrow had an RBI and Harrington drove in a run to lead the Royals’ offense.
Kiernan Schock allowed D-C just 3 hits, which included doubles by Love and Lococo. She struck out four and walked none. Eissler suffered the loss for D-C.
“They came out battling to win a game and after losing 10-0 that’s not easy to do,” said Larkin coach Anne Vogt, whose team played again without starting center fielder Maggie Hofmann, who will miss 4 more games due to a code violation.
“Once we get Maggie back and a couple more hitters in that will solidify our lineup,” Vogt said. “I’m proud of how they came out in the first game. My biggest thing is we have to get better every day. The second game today was a learning experience. The confidence level isn’t there yet. Once we get some more games under our belt it’ll happen.”