W. Chicago wins marathon game, DVC title
Rachael Venchus and West Chicago didn’t just earn a conference championship Thursday.
How about an ice pack and a good night’s sleep?
Venchus delivered a go-ahead 2-run single with two outs in the top of the 17th inning, the Wildcats finally gaining a marathon 7-4 win at Wheaton Warrenville South and the outright DuPage Valley Conference championship.
“I’m out of it right now,” said Venchus, who also caught all 17 innings. “I can’t believe we just won that. I don’t know about tomorrow; I’m gonna be so sore. Seventeen innings. I can’t believe it.”
West Chicago (18-10, 11-3) won the DVC for the second straight year on the conference season’s last day. It is the third DVC title in four years for Wildcats senior Mary Connolly (16-7), who struck out 16 batters and scored the winning run.
“We just did not want to share it,” Connolly said. “You have to earn everything in this conference.”
Connolly was also 3-for-3 at the plate, her line-drive solo homer to center leading off the sixth tying the game at 3-3. WW South intentionally walked Connolly her next five times up, the last time with two out and nobody on in the 17th.
Jen Konchar followed with a pop-up between the mound and home plate that was deflected off the pitcher’s glove and catcher’s mask, Konchar reaching base and Connolly taking third.
Venchus, 0-for-6 at that one point, lined a 2-run single into right-center to make it 6-4. Morgan Dastych’s single tacked on an insurance run.
“I got into a little bit of a slump in the middle of the game,” Venchus said, “but Mary looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You need to step up right now.’ We needed that.”
Connolly, who worked out of a first-and-third, one-out jam in the 15th and stranded a runner at third with two out in the 16th, struck out the side in the 17th. Her 209th and final pitch got Hannah Granger swinging with the tying run on deck.
“The win is the most important thing right now; how my arm feels doesn’t matter,” Connolly said. “It will be sore tomorrow. Right now that doesn’t matter.”
A day after committing 7 errors in an ugly 9-0 loss at Naperville North, West Chicago made just 1.
“Our defense gave me confidence,” Connolly said. “As the innings added up, it was all about our defense.”
WW South (18-15, 6-8), which faces West Chicago in its first regional game Wednesday, held back its No. 1 pitcher, Granger, instead going with freshman Clara Hecht in her first varsity start.
The ace of a 25-1 JV team was up to the challenge. After allowing 2 runs in the first and Connolly’s homer in the sixth, Hecht was only touched for an unearned run in the 11th until the 17th.
Hecht struck out 7, throwing 230 pitches.
“She kept them in check,” said WW South coach Denise McCance. “We weren’t going to give Mary Connolly any other shots after that homer.”
WW South senior Timmie Rappe went 4-for-8, her double in the fifth driving in the tying run before Granger singled her in for a 3-2 Tigers lead. Rappe’s drag bunt single started the WW South 11th run, and she scored on a grounder to tie it 4-4.
Rappe, already the WW South all-time hit record-holder, set the single-season mark Thursday.
“We had our chances to win the game a couple times,” McCance said. “Just couldn’t come through.”