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Softball: Daley, Streamwood hold off Elgin

The last outs of a game are often the toughest for pitchers. Streamwood's Jessica Daley can certainly attest to that.

After cruising through the first five innings at Elgin on Friday Daley ran into some trouble the final two innings, but with the help of some stellar defense the senior right-hander was able to escape a couple jams to preserve a 4-2 Upstate Eight River softball win over the Maroons.

The Sabres (9-13, 4-4) led 4-0 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning before Elgin strung together 4 hits to cut the deficit to 4-2. The Maroons (3-14, 2-8) still had the bases loaded with just one out, but Daley got the next batter to line out to right field and then caught the final batter looking at strike three to end the game.

Daley had already wiggled off the hook in the sixth inning. With runners on first and second and just one out right fielder Laura Dietrich made a nifty running back-handed catch on a slicing line drive down the line to save 2 runs from scoring. Then with the bases loaded and 2 outs, Daley got a strikeout to end the threat.

"I guess I had to make it interesting," Daley joked. "I was just trying to do my best to stay calm and focus on getting the next out. I like the pressure situations. I like to see if I am up to the challenge to get out of it. The screwball was working early on and I kind of got away from it and just went with fastballs for a while, but at the end I went back to what was working best.'

Daley struck out 9 and walked just 2 batters while yielding 6 hits. The Sabres' defense committed just 1 error in the game.

"She did a great job of hitting her spots," said Streamwood coach Natalie Randazzo of Daley. "She is just really calm and can handle those stressful situations. She made some big pitches and the defense behind her was outstanding. Our right fielder (Dietrich) we just switched over from left field and she made a couple of really good plays."

The Sabres came out swinging as they scored a couple runs in the first inning. Rebecca Roncone and Nijal Desai had back-to-back RBI doubles.

Elgin pitcher Jessica Rago then retired the next 16 batters before Roncone and Desai led off the seventh inning with singles. They later both scored on an error to give the Sabres 2 very important insurance runs.

Rachel Turner went 2-for-4 with a pair of doubles and an RBI for Elgin. Lexi Ruiz added an RBI single.

"We had the makings of a couple big innings, but they made some big plays to stop us," Elgin coach Dr. Nick Bumbales said. "All-in-all though we played better than we have been playing. The younger kids seem to be getting more confidence with more at-bats."

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