Softball: Streamwood, Dundee-Crown split doubleheader
| Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media |
Updated: March 24, 2012 6:25PM
Streamwood’s softball team confirmed Saturday with its red-hot bats that this will be a different type of season offensively than any in recent memory.
However, it takes more than one offensive display to keep Dundee-Crown in check, and for the second straight Saturday the Chargers recovered from a Game 1 shellacking to pull out a doubleheader split. After losing 15-7, the Chargers won the second game 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh when winning pitcher Amanda Eissler raced around from second to score with two outs on an error.
“Dundee-Crown is a good team that really battled hard and it was a tough day,” Streamwood coach Nick Baird said. “The first game we kind of beat up on them a little bit but let them hang around and then it carried over into the second game. We just kind of lost our focus then.”
The Sabres, who struggled offensively at times last year, rapped out 19 hits in the first game off Eissler and reliever Melany Love, and seemed to have the game won in six innings by the 10-run rule, 15-4. But three runs in the sixth, including two on Love’s double, forced it into a full game and set a Chargers (3-2) tone for the second game.
“I think the first game it was just a matter of them outhitting us,” Chargers coach Tracy Beatty said. “But the last two days we’ve been hitting it too. We had 12 hits (Friday). I feel like we’re aggressive. We’ve been disciplined in the batters box and are waiting on decent pitches and I think it’s showing in the outcome.”
The Charger who inflicted the most damage was Love, who went 6-for-8 with four RBI on the day. But it was Eissler who came up with the big hit in Game 2 after she had a 1-0 lead slip away when Streamwood’s Brittany Delao hit a solo home run off her in the fifth, and had a 2-1 lead vanish on Melissa Malcom hit a two-out RBI single in the sixth.
Eissler (2-2) lined a two-out double to the fence in the bottom of the seventh. Then Jessica Lewandowski, who had doubled home D-C’s second run in the fifth, lofted a fly beyond the infield. Second baseman Natalie Filippo made a long run and had the ball in her glove with her back to the infield, but then had it fall out and Eissler scored the game-winner.
“I was trying to think of it as a video game,” said Eissler, who started and took the loss in Game 1 but relieved Love in the fifth inning for the Game-2 win. “I had struck out the last two times and I had to reset my head and got up there and tried to get on for the team. With two outs, I was just trying to get on base and get around and help the team.”
Losing pitcher Kaitlyn Hedger stuck out 11 but gave up an RBI single to Mandy Moore in the third after Love had doubled. Then Love scored again in the fifth after a leadoff single when Lewandowski hit a two-out double.
Love had held Streamwood scoreless the first four innings after giving up three runs in 2 2/3 innings of relief in Game 1.
Delao’s second-game home run wasn’t her first display of power. She went 6-for-9 on the day with a home run, a triple, two doubles, and two RBI.
“Today I just hit off the tee really well before the game warming up and came in with a plan and hit really well, got it out there into the field,” Delao said. “As a team we have better power this year compared to last year when we only had a couple good hitters.”
Delao was 4-for-5 in Game 1.
“Brittany Delao is one of the best players in the state of Illinois and everybody in this dugout knows it,” Baird said. “It’s going to be fun to watch her.”
Streamwood (2-1) had four-run outbursts in the first and fifth of Game 1 to offset Lewandowski’s Game 1, third-inning home run.
For Streamwood, Alexis Ciengi went 4-for-4 in Game 1 with two RBI and two doubles, Katie Liquori 4-for-5 with two runs scored and Dani Fisher, Andrea Barajas, and winning pitcher Kellee Conquest (10 hits allowed, three walks and three strikeouts) had two hits each.
Lauren Mercado had five hits on the day for D-C.
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