advertisement

Softball: Patino powers Barrington past St. Charles East

Beginning its 50th season, Barrington's softball team got a big jolt from leadoff batter Jenna Patino on Saturday at the Fields of Dreams.

The senior second baseman belted a pair of line drive home runs over the left field fence and the Fillies posted a 5-2 win over visiting St. Charles East.

It was the Fillies' 25th opening day win in 26 seasons under coach Perry Peterson, who brought junior pitcher Tori Meyer to the mound in the third inning with his team trailing 1-0.

Meyer proceeded to give up just 1 run the rest of the way to earn the win, just like she did when she entered in relief of the first inning of last year's Class 4A third-place game last June in East Peoria.

"Tori did a super job coming in," Peterson said. "She had really great command. She had a strategy and executed it well."

Both teams know how to execute. The Saints were coming off a 30-8 campaign a year ago while the Fillies were 37-4.

St. Charles got on the board first, thanks to Hanna Cozzi's fielder's choice grounder on which Lauren Luna raced home.

Luna had doubled to start the inning and advanced to third on Maddy Stout's fly out to right.

The Saints were threatening again in the third when Brook Byas led off with a single to right.

That's when Meyer, who made a terrific catch in center field to prevent a first inning run, took the mound.

Maddie Candre greeted her with single to center. But Meyer retired the next three batters, including 2 strikeouts to end the threat.

"Tori did a great job, especially coming in from the outfield," Patino said. "That's hard to make that change."

Patino then helped change the game with her one-out homer that tied the game at 1-1 in the third inning.

"Honestly, we've been working really hard on hitting and I've been feeling really good," said Patino, who had 2 homers all of last season. "We've all been putting in a lot of work and we came out really excited this game."

"That's what Jenna has been doing in practice," Peterson said. "Jenna is a really good hitter. Strength wise, she has been working hard to get better. She is just a terrific athlete.

"She is a two-sport athlete with cross-country and softball. Our school likes multi-sport athletes and she showed her athleticism today."

The Fillies took the lead for good with 3 runs in the fourth inning.

Starting pitcher Catherine McMahon started the rally with a walk and went to second on Katherine Stagnito's sacrifice bunt.

Senior Caroline Hoppe then delivered the game-winning RBI with a double to right center.

Kendall Peterson's two-out double off the left field wall made it 3-1 and a single to left by Abby Jacobsen (3-for-4) drove home Peterson for the 4-1 cushion.

A RBI single by Cozzi scored Paige Ligocki to cut the lead in half in the top of the sixth.

Barrington got the run back in the bottom of the inning when Patino led off with her second homer.

"My first at-bat of the game didn't go well (pop up to third in the first inning)," Patino said. "But the second time I was ready and looking for a pitch I could hit hard, and I did. Then I was looking for the same pitch later in the game, and I got it (for second homer)."

Patino and Meyer each went 2-for-4 as six different Fillies had hits.

Freshman Katie Arrambide went all seven innings for the visitors.

"Making her debut against a quality team, I think her performance speaks for itself," said third-year Saints coach Jarod Gutesha, who has back-to-back 30-win season. "She is a competitor. She can move the ball, change speeds and she is one of those kids who will compete against any team no matter how good they are."

Candre, Cozzi, Luna and Alex Wooten each had 2 hits for the Saints.

"You always want to win," Gutesha said. "But I thought it was competitive game and pretty even hit wise

"They got a couple of big ones and we had a couple of runners in scoring position where if we could have got a hit, it might have been a different story. But we're excited to move forward, We have 34 more games plus the postseason."

Peterson's club is looking forward to Monday's start of the Spring Fling.

"We battled against a good St. Charles East team," he said. "It's a good start but we obviously have plenty of room to get better. Well just keep working. We're looking forward to the Spring Fling."

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.