Glenbard N. overcomes St. Charles North’s fast start
St. Charles North had a plan of attack going into its Class 4A regional championship game against top-seeded Glenbard North and its ace, Lilly Fecho — attack early.
It worked in the first innings as the first four batters had hits and the 10th-seeded North Stars jumped out to a 3-0 lead.
But Fecho settled in and the Purdue-bound senior didn’t allow another hit until there were two out in the sixth inning and by then the Panthers had battled back to take the lead and eventually the regional title by a score of 7-4.
“They came out and exploded in that first inning,” said Glenbard North coach Josh Sanew. “But I like the way our kids never put their heads down. They said, ‘Hey, this is the top of the first, there is a lot of game left.’ We’ve had a couple of nice practices, including this morning where we hit the ball well, and we felt confident that our bats were going to score us some runs. And we were hoping Lilly would settle down like she usually does and she did.”
“We felt the key was to get ahead early,” said North Stars coach Tom Poulin. “We’ve been the favorite in the past and every inning that you are down the pressure gets a little bit heavier and that is what we wanted to put on them and, to their credit, I didn’t notice any pressure effecting them. They just came out and played a great game of softball after that first inning and Lilly settled down and dug in and took control of the game. That is why they are the No. 1 seed.”
Glenbard North (33-2) finally broke into the scoring column against North Stars starting pitcher Sabrina Rabin (10-5) in the bottom of the third inning when Rabin hit Alex Caliva with one out. Fecho then helped herself with a double down the left-field line that moved Caliva to third and Caliva scored on a grounder to second to make the score 3-1 in favor of St. Charles North.
Fecho (26-2) followed that with a shut down inning and then the Panthers were able to scratch out another run in the bottom of the fourth inning when Heather Sperlazzo led off with a triple to the right-centerfield fence and was brought home by another RBI groundout to second by Stephanie Campos to cut the lead to one.
Fecho led off with a single in the bottom half of the fifth inning and the Panthers put together their fist offensive surge of the day.
Sydney Benz hit a double to right center, and Kelsey Muller followed with a perfect bunt single that scored Fecho and tied the game at 3-3. Sperlazzo brought home Benz with a slow roller to the left side that cut down Muller at third base but allowed the go-ahead run to score. A couple of infield singles and a wild pitch later the Panthers were up 5-3.
“We chipped away at it, got some here and there in the middle innings of the game,” said Sanew. “We got some big hits to start things, especially Heater Sperlazzo, it felt like after she hit that ball off of the fence it gave our bench a little bit of life and put some confidence back in the offense. We were able to manufacture some runs. We did a nice job of putting the ball in play on the ground with people on scoring position. That’s the name of the game is to put pressure on defenses.”
The Panthers added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth and the North Stars touched Fecho for one more run in the seventh inning for a final score of 7-4.
Glenbard North advances to the Lake Park sectional where they will play York at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The North Stars finish the season with a 23-13 record.
“I’m proud of our kids,“ said Poulin. “We have some freshmen, six sophomores, a couple of juniors and we have nine first-year varsity starters. For us to battle the No. 1 team like that, to win a conference title, that just tells you that we have a bright future. We wish Glenbard North the best because we have faced some good teams this year and that’s the best we’ve seen.”