Softball: Streator’s hot start survives late cooldown in 7-6 win over La Salle-Peru

STREATOR – The Streator softball team started off hot Wednesday with seven runs over the first three innings, then cooled off.

La Salle-Peru was cold until heating up for six runs over the fifth and sixth innings to draw as close as one run.

Junior pitcher Makenna Ondrey and the Bulldogs’ defense, however, cooled the Cavaliers back down for a 1-2-3, five-pitch top of the seventh, icing a 7-6 nonconference victory at the SHS Athletic Fields.

“So the sixth inning, I was very nervous after a couple hits, and the seventh inning I told myself to just relax and push myself through it,” said Ondrey. “I focused on pitching low, and [L-P] seemed to either pop it up or hit a grounder right to someone.

“I was really wanting to beat them, and I was trying to keep everybody’s energy up, reminding them to stay pumped up, we want to beat them. It’s our first time [beating La Salle-Peru] in four years, I think.”

Keeping energy levels and enthusiasm up was a challenge for the Cavaliers (3-2) and Bulldogs (1-2) on a chilly early evening with temperatures in the low 40s.

Streator warmed things up early with a three-run first (a Lily Kupec sacrifice bunt thrown into right field and a Joyce Walkling RBI single to right the highlights) followed by a three-run second (Ava Glisson leadoff double, Kupec bases-loaded walk, Walkling with a two-RBI fielder’s choice groundout in the hole at short). The Bulldogs added their seventh run in the third thanks to doubles off the bats of Glisson and Mya Zavada.

While the hosts enjoyed that early success off L-P pitcher Taylor Vescogni (6 IP, 7 R, 6 ER, 6 H, 5 BB, 5 K) before cooling down, the Cavaliers were the exact opposite.

The Cavs finally got the bats heated up against Ondrey (7 IP, 6 R, 5 ER, 9 H, 2 BB, 8 K) with a single run in the fifth on an Addie Duttlinger RBI groundout, setting up a five-run sixth highlighted by a Kelsey Frederick sacrifice fly and RBI singles courtesy of Allie Thome, Grace Pecchio and Duttlinger.

“Since I’ve been here at L-P, it seems like when it’s cold, we think about it and worry about it while the other team is over there in short sleeves,” L-P coach Randy Huebbe said. “They’re swinging freely, and we’re swinging stiff. It took us four innings to get that out of our heads, and then we started to hit.

“I’m going to lay that on me and preparing them. Yeah, it is pretty cold out here – it is cold – but it’s the same for [Streator]. It’s a mental thing. We’ve got to ignore the elements and play. That sort of got us today.”

Vescogni worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the sixth, and the momentum and the heat seemed to be all in La Salle-Peru’s favor. It took Ondrey, however, just five pitches to record her own 1-2-3 frame, this one ending the game with a fly out to Zavada in center field followed by back-to-back, hard-hit but routine groundouts to shortstop Caitlin Talty.

“We kind of tense up, don’t think the same, but then we had a talk before we went out there [for the top of the seventh inning], and we just told them, ‘Hey, relax. We’ve got this. We’ve just got to close the door,’ " Bulldogs coach Louis Ondrey said.

“This one felt really good. We’re really starting to click as a team, I think. We still have our nervous innings where we’re not so confident. We’ve got a few younger girls who are still learning our way of playing.

“But it’s starting to come together. We had that one inning ... but we got through it.”

Callie Mertes and Pecchio provided two hits apiece for L-P, with Duttlinger recording two RBIs.

Glisson and Talty notched two hits each for Streator, with Walkling credited for a game-high three runs batted in.