Softball: Lake Forest gets past Waukegan
Updated: April 4, 2012 10:00PM
Up 4-3 with two out and two on in the top of the sixth, Waukegan softball coach Windell Piercy rallied his troops in the circle to tell them this was the crucial moment of Wednesday’s game.
He was right ... dead right.
“I took a timeout to tell the girls that this was the defining moment in the game, and we needed to be ready to make a play,” he lamented afterward. “Six minutes later, we’re down 9-4 (the Scouts wound up winning 10-5).
“We just kind of shut down and let the game get away. The errors in that inning were the difference.
“With a young team like this, those emotions need to be harnessed,” Piercy added. “It’s something we have to learn. It’s early, so it’s an experience we can learn from.”
The six-run outburst ended Waukegan’s hopes of starting its season 2-0. Lake Forest, meanwhile, is 2-2.
Infield errors on consecutive grounders opened the floodgates for the Scouts.
And when Natalia Murphy followed with an RBI single, Reanna Durbin an RBI double, and Sarah Porter and RBI single, it was game over.
“We worked really hard on our hitting. Yesterday, we practiced hitting the ball out in front of home plate,” said Scouts coach Sue Brugioni. “Everybody did a great job today. This was easily our best performance, and we hit the ball hard. They weren’t just little bloopers.”
When Brugioni talks about everybody, she’s talking about nine players. That’s her entire team (four freshmen, three seniors and two juniors).
“There are pros and cons (to having no subs),” Brugioni said. “They know that they’re going to play ... that’s the good part. But it’s also the bad part. For us, the challenge is to keep them motivated knowing that they’re going to play no matter what.”
The winning pitcher was freshman Sarah Porter.
The hard-luck loser was sophomore Melissa Anderson.
Anderson had three hits in four at-bats, and Megan Cook was 2-for-4 with an RBI.
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