Softball: St. Charles North ousts St. Charles East again
A little over two weeks ago, St. Charles East dominated St. Charles North 10-2, giving the Saints a regular season sweep of their rival.
North Stars coach Tom Poulin remained confident that day, saying moments after the loss how much his team wanted to see St. Charles East again.
The North Stars got their wish Tuesday in the semifinals of the Class 4A Fremd sectional, and Poulin's players proved their coach prophetic. St. Charles North erased an early 2-run deficit with a 5-run fifth inning on its way to a 7-4 victory.
It's the second straight year the North Stars have knocked the top-seeded Saints out of the postseason after losing to them twice in the regular season.
"Every year is different, entirely different team and East is different, but it still feels great," said winning pitcher Jillian Waslawski. "At the beginning of the year we wrote the word resilient on the board and I think that's what we embodied today and that's our mindset throughout this entire tournament season. We just had to play our game."
No. 4 seed St. Charles North (19-9) will play the winner of Wednesday's semifinal between No. 3 Fremd and No. 7 Bartlett on Saturday for the sectional championship.
"That (the 10-2 loss) was one of those days," Poulin said. "We felt we had figured a couple things out as far as our approach at the plate and that showed today. We're confident. We've won a lot of tournament softball games. A lot of girls on our roster have played in a lot of games after the regular season. And they know how to win."
Those adjustments came against freshman Katie Arrambide, who threw a 1-hit shutout in the first win over the North Stars and held them to 2 runs in the second game.
St. Charles North's main adjustment was to lay off the rise ball.
"Nothing above our belly button," first baseman Alyssa Eby explained.
Arrambide made it through the first inning unscathed but not until the North Stars forced her to throw 30 pitches.
"If you make her throw a lot of pitches in a game like this it's going to benefit you," Poulin said.
St. Charles East (25-7) struck first in the second. Maddie Stout walked and scored on Hannah Cozzi's opposite-field double, and Krista Sbarra singled just inside the first-base line to plate Cozzi.
The North Stars got a run back in the fourth when Ashlyn Jozefowicz led off with a single, took third on Sydney Eby's single and scored on Olivia Oborne's groundout.
Grace Sobieski walked to start the 5-run fifth. Anastasia Pappas bunted her to second, and Alyssa Eby tied the game with a ringing double to right-center.
Waslawski singled to center, and the ball got past Maddie Candre to allow Eby to score the go-ahead run. Arrambide dropped a pop-up, and Grace Quinn made the Saints pay with a 2-run double off the left-field fence for a 5-2 lead. The North Stars made it 6-2 on a throwing error, the Saints' third of the inning.
"It was an inning that got away," Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said. "It did snowball. Big game, they obviously had some nice big hits, and they took advantage of a few situations."
Alyssa Eby ripped her second double of the game in the sixth to score Sobieski, who reached on another Saints error.
"Think top half of ball and line drives," Eby said of her approach. "We know in the postseason whoever has the most heart is going to win the games. This is my senior year and we weren't done yet. We knew if we played our best game we could beat them."
The Saints scored twice in the sixth highlighted by Stout's RBI triple, but Waslawski retired the Saints' 1-2-3 hitters in order in the seventh to end the game. She allowed 5 hits and 2 walks, striking out three.
The four-year starter also went 3-for-4 at the plate.
"We are playing well at the right time," Poulin said.
St. Charles East graduates four seniors from its Upstate Eight River championship team - Candre, Cozzi, Sara Campagna and Brooke Byas.
"This team has been awesome," Gutesha said. "That's one thing I told them, the way the seniors brought the kids together and turned it into the year we had. It didn't go our way today but still a good season for us."