Hall baseball, softball sweep Mendota in TRAC East openers: Tuesday’s BCR roundup

The Hall baseball and softball teams swept Mendota in Tuesday’s Three Rivers Conference East openers in Spring Valley.

Softball

Hall 15, Mendota 5 (5 inn.): The Red Devils scored 10 runs in the first inning and cruised to a victory behind winning pitcher Brynn Blair, who allowed five runs (three earned) on three hits with two strikeouts and two walks in five innings.

Leah Burkart was 2 for 3, drove in three runs and scored three runs for Hall (2-7, 1-0), while Kailey Edwards had three RBIs and two runs and Caroline Morris doubled, drove in two runs and scored twice.

Baseball

Hall 10, Mendota 0 (6 inn.): Braden Curran threw a two-hit shutout to lead the Red Devils to a victory over the Trojans at Kirby Park. He struck out 11 batters and walked two.

Curran was also 2 for 3 at the plate with a double, three RBIs and two runs. Jack Jablonski was 2 for 4 with two RBIs and two runs for Hall (6-5, 1-0).

St. Bede 17, Woodland 2 (4 inn.): The Bruins brought their big bats to Streator Tuesday, cracking 15 hits to cruise to a Tri-County Conference victory in a game called after four innings.

Gus Burr had a big day at the plate for the Bruins (9-0, 3-0) with a homer, double, four RBIs and three runs. AJ Hermes went 3 for 3 with a double, four RBIs and two runs while Aidan Mullane drove in two runs with one hit.

Winning pitcher Ranbir Saini allowed two runs on two hits with five strikeouts and two walks in two innings. Hermes tossed two scoreless innings, giving up one hit with three strikeouts and one walk.

Girls track

At Spring Valley: Princeton had first-place finishes and five seconds to capture Tuesday’s outdoors season opener at Hall High School.

The Tigresses scored 82 points to top Peoria Richwoods (75) followed by IVC (60), Somonauk (30) and Hall (24) The meet was called after the 400 dash due to darkness.

Winners for PHS were Ashlynn Weber in the triple jump at 9.84 meters (32-3 1/2), Camryn Driscoll in the 400 (1:00.39), Jocelyn Strouss in the 800 (2:38.07) and Payton Frueh in the 3,200 (13:14.37)

Weber also took second in the long jump at 4.66 meters (15-3 1/4) as did Annie Thompson in pole vault at 2.28 meters (7-6) and Ruby Acker in the 800 (2:42.12).

PHS also claimed seconds in the 4 x 800 relay with Avery Waca, Natalie Meyer, Rebekah Lord and Alexandra Waca in 12:03.65 and the 4 x 200 relay with Journey Short, Keaira Knupp, Danika Burden and Kinley Fogarty in 2:03.37

“I thought that we had some excellent performances on a cool day. At least the wind was being cooperative,” PHS coach Pat Hodge said.