Softball: West Aurora's Lundberg no-hits Bartlett

There were plenty of congratulations, high-fives, and hugs for West Aurora pitcher Payton Lundberg as she walked off the field at the end of Wednesday's game at Bartlett.

However, the usual jumping up and down, or throwing gloves and hats in the air pandemonium associated with the conclusion of no-hitter seemed to be missing. It certainly wasn't because her teammates weren't elated, but more because they have come to expect such dominance from the sophomore right-hander.

Lundberg struck out 15 batters in recording her second no-hitter of the season and leading the Blackhawks to a 2-0 Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division win. Her only blemishes were the 6 walks she allowed.

West Aurora coach Randy Hayslett has found it hard not to get immune to such performances.

"This has become almost a typical outing for her," Hayslett said. "She doesn't allow many hits and this is usually about how many strikeouts she has. You try not to take it for granted, but she is just so consistent that this is really no surprise at all. She is so smooth and fluid that batters don't even realize how quickly the ball is getting up there until it's already past them."

Lundberg retired the side in order three times in the game, including the first inning when she struck out the side and the seventh inning when she ended the game with a pair of strikeouts. She twice had to work out of small jams in the second and sixth innings when she walked back-to-back batters with one out.

"It feels great to get a no hitter, but during the game I wasn't really aware of it," Lundberg said. "Bartlett has a really good team so I was just really focusing on getting ahead in the count especially because I was struggling a little bit with hitting my spots. But I had really good spin with my drop curve and screwball."

The Blackhawks (19-4, 9-0) got their only 2 runs in the first inning. Sophia Delgado walked with one out. She went to second on a single by Grace Hunger and scored on a single by Kallie Rundle. Hunger scored the second run later in the inning on an error.

Bartlett pitcher Janelle Ulaszek went on to pitch a solid game herself retiring 19 of the last 22 batters she faced.

The Hawks' (14-7-1, 5-4) best chance to score came in the sixth inning when Amber Pagan and Taylor Rotondo reached on walks. With two outs Ulaszek made the best contact of the game when she lifted a fly ball to left-center, but it was hauled in for the third out.

"I thought we did a good job of commanding the strike zone against a great pitcher by being able to draw six walks," Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "But she is really tough hit and it's even tougher when she is getting some calls a little off the plate. She has great speed with her riseball and she can spin it too. We needed a slightly better approach especially when we had runners on. We watched a few too many good pitches go by and swung at a few too many bad pitches."