St. Charles E. wins wild one over Burlington

There were no amusement parks in sight, but St. Charles East’s softball team experienced its own roller coaster ride Monday morning.

The Saints (1-1) were down, up, and all around the park before emerging with an 8-7 nonconference triumph over Burlington Central (2-3) in St. Charles.

Shannon Pedersen delivered the key hit, a 2-out, RBI single in the bottom of the sixth inning that drove in Tess Hupe from third to snap a 7-7 deadlock.

“You always want to be the one in that pressure situation,” said Pedersen, a St. Xavier recruit. “It felt great to get in that winning run. That was actually my first hit of the season so that even felt better.”

Pedersen’s line single was especially timely considering that Rockets freshman starting pitcher Angie Morrow (0-2) had recorded a strikeout with runners in scoring position moments earlier.

“Shannon really came up when we needed her,” said Saints coach Kelly Horan. “There’s nothing that makes me happier than to see a senior have success like that.”

Burlington Central jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on successive singles from Haley Albamonte, Sarah Kisch (3-for-4), and Emily Bell (3-for-4, 2 RBI) off of Saints starting pitcher Pedersen.

The Saints answered in the bottom half of the first, tying the game on sophomore Kate Peterburs’ 2-run single, then scored 4 times in the second to grab a 6-2 lead.

Peterburs, who went 2-for-3 with 4 RBI, delivered another 2-run single to right field, and the Saints also capitalized on some shaky defense and decision-making from the Rockets.

“We need to execute things that we work on at practice,” said Rockets coach Cray Allen, who takes his team to Murfreesboro, Tenn., for 5 games in the Warriors Southern Classic later this week.

Burlington Central fought back with a pair of runs in the fourth, as Brooke Gaylord (2-for-4, 2 doubles) and Morrow had back-to-back, 1-out doubles before Kelli Gaylord’s RBI single closed the gap to 6-4.

After the Saints’ Lexi Perez turned a leadoff bunt single into an all-out sprint around the bases when an errant throw rolled along the fence on the first-base side to make it 7-4, the Rockets greeted reliever Haley Beno (1-1) with a 3-run fifth.

Bell drove in the first run of the inning on a fielder’s choice grounder that the Saints elected to throw home late before Brooke Gaylord’s 2-run double to deep left-center knotted the score at 7-all.

“The mistakes we’re making right now are young ones like knowing where to throw the ball,” said Horan. “We’ll continue to get better. But you can’t teach fighting back and that’s what the kids did.”

Hupe led off the sixth with a walk and raced all the way to third on Perez’s well-placed sacrifice bunt, something that brought a smile to Horan’s face.

“Putting pressure on the defense — that’s our plan,” said Horan. “There are no secrets. You win games by making the other team make mistakes, and hopefully we’re going to make them make mistakes by being fast on the bases.”

Bell led off the seventh with a single and took second on Brooke Gaylord’s 1-out bunt but was left stranded.

“We walked people, we made errors on plays that should get us out of innings, and we can’t get bunts down,” said Allen. “We better be careful or it could be a long season. These are varsity athletes who expect a pretty nice season, and whether it’s five games in or not, it doesn’t matter. We need to get mentally tougher.”