Softball: Sabrina Rabin powers St Charles North past Elgin

Updated: April 20, 2012 7:35PM

The 11-1 nonconference beating St. Charles North absorbed Thursday at the hands of Glenbard North’s unbeaten softball pitcher Lilly Fechow may have actually benefited the Stars.

On Friday, they came out swinging the bats against Elgin’s red-hot senior left-hander Hannah Perryman and came away with an 8-1 Upstate Eight River victory.

“We faced a really good pitcher yesterday and that helped,” North freshman Kaitlyn Waslawski said.

Waslawski had an RBI single in the second inning, an RBI double in the fourth and four times hit the ball hard into the outfield, while sophomore pitcher Sabrina Rabin scored three runs, had two hits and three stolen bases and fired a three-hitter at the short-handed Maroons.

“If we had faced somebody Thursday who wasn’t an elite pitcher, we may have had a different story today,” North coach Tom Poulin said. “Hannah, she’s been just dominant this year, but I think we can hit. Consistently, we have hit the ball hard. Even our outs are hit hard.”

North had eight hits off Perryman, who came into the game with 100 strikeouts in her previous six starts. The Stars scored two in the first thanks largely to three Elgin errors, and the Maroons went on to commit five errors.

“We’re not going to beat anybody if we’re going to throw the ball around like that,” Elgin coach Chad Dahlman said. “We’re better than that. You can’t give someone six outs in the (first) inning like we did.”

Emily Brodner made those errors hurt even more by spanking a one-out, two-run first-inning single and finished 2-for-3 on the day with three RBI. Perryman (8-7) struck out nine and walked four.

The Stars (10-9, 6-3), and Waslawski in particular, found hitting Perryman’s rise ball less difficult than some teams have in recent games.

“Most of the time I just try to lay off the rise ball, unless I have two strikes and I’m up there just protecting,” Waslawski said. “I usually just try to not think too much when I’m up at the plate .

“Today I was just seeing the ball clearly and as a team we hit it really well overall today.”

Instead of Perryman, Rabin (6-4) was the strikeout artist with 11 on the day. She gave up Kelly Bremer’s two-out RBI single in the third, but no one else scored.

“I’m proud of her because she had a rough outing against Geneva and then an uncharacteristic game in the outfield yesterday,” Poulin said. “She’s a top-of-the-line player and I told her the other day, ‘There’s a reason you’re captain and throwing every day and leading off, and it’s because you deserve it and you’re good enough.’

“She went out there with a lot more confidence. She was looking forward to the matchup against Perryman.”

Elgin played again without hard-hitting Jennah Perryman, who underwent an MRI before the game on her shoulder. She’s still able to bat, but hasn’t been able to throw much. The Maroons may lose senior outfielder Rachel Roth for the season for medical reasons, as well, and Thursday were without starter Caroline Sobeski due to illness.

“We had to call a girl up from JV,” Dahlman said. “We’ve been hurting for a while now.”

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