Softball: Rain gets best of St. Charles North, West Aurora
St. Charles North and West Aurora got two and a half innings of softball in Friday before the skies opened up and rain forced the teams to postpone their game.
The North Stars led 2-1 which is where the game will resume with Grace Quinn leading off the bottom of the third.
Sophomore Gab Drager started for the Blackhawks. She escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first before St. Charles North (5-2, 2-1) plated a pair of runs on one play in the second.
Marilyn Webb started the inning with a single. She advanced to second on a groundout and scored on Alyssa Domaracki's single up the middle.
When the Blackhawks threw home trying to get Webb, Domaracki alertly headed to second. The throw to second went into center field and past the outfielder, and Domaracki raced all the way around to score.
Janae Holloway singled to start the Blackhawks third inning, the only hit Jillian Waslawski allowed, but was stranded at third as the rain picked up.
West Aurora scored its run in the first when Gab Nilles walked, stole second and scored on a two-out error.
"We made a couple mistakes defensively," said North Stars coach Tom Poulin, whose team left a runner in scoring position in all seven innings this week in a loss to South Elgin.
"Our pitching is solid. Today was kind of us in a nutshell. We're not as experienced as we've been in the past. We're going to be fine but we definitely have to go through the process and get better and learn from each game."
Coming off a 31-win season, West Aurora (2-4, 2-1) is off to a slow start with losses to Rosary, Aurora Central Catholic and Streamwood.
"We're struggling to get things going," Blackhawks coach Randy Hayslett said. "We were excited about how we got started here today and making some contact.
"We're getting a lot of young pitchers on the mound. It's taken awhile to get our bats going. We're a little behind where we've been but we'll get there."
Returning All-Area junior Payton Lundberg has only pitched in two games against Rosary and Elgin. As a sophomore the DePaul commit threw three no-hitters and had 187 strikeouts in 92 innings with an 11-4 record, 1.46 ERA and 0.834 WHIP.
"She's working on some different things mechanically and working on some different changeups, some different grips and different releases," Hayslett said. "She's reinventing herself a little bit.
"She's just a little off. She changed some things mechanically and is just working on some things and has been seeing another pitching coach. We expect her to dominate all the time but realize she's got some growing pains too and has to change some things up. We'll give her some time to figure things out. It will be better. We're working on it."