Softball: Swiatkowski, Carmel come up big against Sterling

It's not your typical softball number that Jordan Swiatkowski wears on the back of her Carmel Catholic jersey.

"When I first tried out for travel, I came on the team later and all they had left was double-zero and 99," Swiatkowski said. "I picked 99, and I just stuck with it."

Maybe it's fitting, since Swiatkowski isn't your typical freshman. Not with that powerful swing. Not with that poise.

"She is clutch," said Corsairs senior catcher Amanda Elert, who swung a mighty bat herself when she was a freshman. "That girl's got ice water running through her veins."

Take Tuesday.

With Carmel trailing Sterling by a run with two out in the bottom of the fifth in the Class 3A Hampshire supersectional, and with Emma Bartz on second base, Swiatkowski fell behind 0-2 against fellow ninth-grader Jayme Eilers. Swiatkowski then smacked a 2-run homer over the fence in center field. Claire Petrus blanked Sterling over the last two innings, as Carmel completed its comeback with a 5-4 win.

When slick-fielding shortstop Jen Giesey sucked up a groundball and threw to first baseman Karina Falkstrom for the final out, after Abri Hale's single had kept Sterling's hopes alive, Carmel celebrated in the infield for the second day in a row. The win earned the Corsairs a trip to state for the first time and ended Sterling's season at 34-6.

Carmel (26-11), a day after winning the rain-delayed Wauconda sectional, will play Montini (35-3) in the state semifinals at 10 a.m. Friday at Eastside Centre in East Peoria.

"It's just amazing. It's truly a blessing to just get here," Petrus said after notching her career-high-tying 23rd win and hiking her school-record total to 53. "Last year we were really strong, and this year we thought we'd get far, but not as far as last year. We're getting through it. It's a good journey."

Carmel's journey had its peaks and valleys at Hampshire, from falling behind early and then again late, to the heroics of the kid third baseman.

"It's very special, and I'm so honored," Swiatkowski said of hitting her big homer. "But if we didn't have the runner on, and if I didn't have confidence in my teammates, I wouldn't have been confident in the box."

Carmel set a school record for home runs this season, and No. 63 couldn't have come at a better time. Bartz had just stolen her second base of the game, when Swiatkowski took a low-and-inside, 1-2 pitch and launched it to dead center for her ninth homer of the season.

"I've actually been calling that home run for probably four games now," Elert said. "She's been just missing it, (hitting pitches) to the warning track. I think she was a little frustrated. For a freshman, it's difficult. I remember that feeling. It's nerve-wracking. It's even nerve-wracking now as a senior."

Sterling had struck immediately against Petrus, as Erin Stroup led off the game with a double and later scored on a wild pitch.

"The first inning I was really nervous," Petrus said. "I was almost shaking, at first. We hadn't played them yet, nor had we seen them."

Carmel tied it in the bottom of the first when Elert doubled off the fence in right field for her 72nd RBI. Two-out hits by Giesey (single) and Dani DeLozier (double) knocked in runs to put the Corsairs up 3-1 in the second and knock out starting pitcher Lexy Staples.

Back came the Golden Warriors. Hale hit an opposite-field homer to right leading off the top of the fourth, and a dropped flyball down the line allowed Sterling to tie the score. Nadia Trujillo then clubbed a Petrus riseball over the fence in center field to begin the fifth, and Sterling had a 4-3 lead.

Like two years ago in the supersectional, when she took Wauconda's Kayla Wedl deep, it was the first homer of the season for Trujillo.

"That was just a good hit," Petrus said. "Props to her."

Carmel earned its props too, rallying to win its fifth game of the postseason after going into the state tournament as the No. 4 seed in the sectional.

"This whole tournament, we've had close games, except for the first one (against Regina Dominican)," said coach Shane Schueneman, whose Corsairs survived Ridgewood in eight innings in the regional final and then edged Wauconda and Antioch in the sectional. "That goes a long way in tight games like this."