Softball: Numerous reasons for Grant to be thinking big
Tuesday wasn't the first time Grant softball's No. 24 played a role in a postseason victory.
Thirty years ago, Michele Gorham played center field for Grant's team that went to a supersectional. On Tuesday, her daughter pitched the Bulldogs to a 9-2 win over visiting Round Lake in a semifinal of the Class 4A Grant regional in Fox Lake.
Like her mom did, Sydney Goessele wears No. 24.
"I went a different route (pitcher, not an outfielder), but still the same number and playing for the same (school)," a smiling Goessele said. "It's really cool. Hopefully I can go just as far as she went. A little bit of family competition."
Goessele and her teammates next get a chance to capture the Bulldogs' first regional championship since 1996. Grant, the No. 2 seed in the Huntley subsectional A, will play the winner of Wednesday's 4:30 p.m. game between No. 3 Crystal Lake South and No. 8 McHenry at 11 a.m. Saturday.
"They have good pitchers," Grant coach Chris Van Alstine said of Crystal Lake South and McHenry. "We have to really work counts, and we have to do a better job of getting the barrel to the ball."
No. 9 Round Lake (8-18) outhit Grant (21-10) 5-4 and looked early on that it had serious intentions of making amends for a pair of double-digit losses to the Bulldogs during Northern Lake County Conference play. Round Lake started the game with hard hits off the bats of Sydney Verastegui, Charla Ryan and Brianna Negrete McGinley. But center fielder Gabby Rogalevich threw out Verastegui trying to stretch her single into a double, and Ryan was thrown out at third after slipping rounding second base as Negrete McGinley pulled into the bag with a double.
Round Lake's top three hitters in the batting order are teammates of Goessele with the Antioch-based Bordertown Bandits.
"They're on my travel team so they hit BP off me all winter," Goessele said with a laugh. "I think it was a little bit of nerves, just trying to get them out. But after that, I definitely settled in."
Goessele retired 15 of the next 16 batters she faced, and her teammates gave her all the run support she needed when they scored 4 runs on 3 walks and an error in the second inning.
"Momentum is a heck of a thing," Round Lake coach Patrick DeDina said. "And (Goessele) is a really good pitcher."
Down 9-0, Round Lake got a two-out single from Verastegui (2-for-2, hit by pitch) in the sixth. Ryan followed with an opposite-field homer to right.
"He's got some athletes there," Van Alstine said of DeDina.
It was the fifth home run of the season for the Harper College-bound Ryan.
"I'm very proud of my team," Ryan said. "We've come a long way. There are a lot of teams in this conference that play year-round, they have open gyms, they're together and they play travel ball together. Round Lake's team isn't like that."
Goessele, Meghan Mitchell, Rogalevich and Maddy Nourigat each had a single and an RBI for Grant. Goessele struck out nine and didn't walk a batter.
Round Lake freshman pitcher Michelle Lauritzen walked nine but was unfazed after Nourigat drilled her with a line drive in the fourth.
"It hit her right above the knee," DeDina said. "She's pretty tough."