Softball: Izzy Howe shakes off shaky start, pitches St. Charles East past St. Charles North

ST. CHARLES – Izzy Howe’s day couldn’t have started much worse Monday in St. Charles East’s crosstown game with St. Charles North.

Things got quite a bit better as the game went on.

Howe, the Saints’ senior ace, opened the game with a pair of walks after an infield error to load the bases with no outs.

Howe followed with a wild pitch to fall behind a run with runners at second and third and the heart of St. Charles North’s lineup coming up.

[ Photos: St. Charles East vs. St. Charles North softball ]

But just as quickly as Howe got into trouble she got out of it. Howe recorded back-to-back strikeouts looking, then got a groundout to escape the inning with just one run.

Her teammates gave her the lead with four runs in the second and three in the fifth while Howe shut out the North Stars the rest of the way for a 7-1 victory.

“The ump definitely had a tight strike zone,” Howe said. “I just needed to adjust. My inside pitches were definitely working the most.”

Howe’s composure surprised nobody. She improved to 9-1 on the season.

The Coastal Carolina recruit didn’t allow a hit until speedy Leigh VandeHei beat out an infield single in the seventh. Howe overcame four Saints errors, three hit batters and three walks, striking out 13.

“I thought she did a great job fighting through it and did a really nice job bouncing back,” Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said.

“Izzy is a great pitcher and the way she pitches is electric,” teammate Mel Stathopoulos said. “She shuts down a lot of batters. It’s awesome to see in the field and a good momentum shifter. In that first inning things weren’t really going our way but I knew she was going to get back into it later in the game.”

In handing Ava Goettel (6-1) her first loss of the season, the Saints got all the offense they needed in the second.

Stathopoulos tied the game with her third home run of the season, an opposite field line drive over the right field fence.

“I try to go up there with the least amount of pressure and just swing at strikes,” Stathopoulos said. “She (Goettel) was pitching us outside almost every pitch so I knew what to expect. l put a good swing on a good ball.”

The Saints continued driving those outside pitches the other way while capitalizing on a couple North Stars errors.

Stephanie Schnite tripled and scored the go-ahead run on an infield error. Abby Arend also singled and came in to score when Nicole Johnston laced a two-run triple for a 4-1 lead. All three extra-base hits in the inning were to the opposite field.

Stathopoulos added a line single in the fifth, the only Saint with a multihit day in what’s become a deep and balanced lineup.

“We don’t rely on one, two or three kids at the top,” Gutesha said. “If you were to watch 10 games of ours you would see, just like we did today, it doesn’t matter where we are in the order. They are going to move the ball and they are going to move it hard.”

The win pulls St. Charles East (14-2, 3-1) even with the North Stars (8-2, 3-1) in the early stages of the DuKane Conference race. The Saints’ only conference loss came in a wild 20-19 game to Lake Park that they led 19-2 — and were still up 19-12 before giving up 8 runs in the bottom of the seventh.

The victory also avenged an upset loss to the North Stars in last year’s postseason.

“This was uncharacteristic of us,” North Stars coach Tom Poulin said. “Our at-bats, different things we did in the field, just not how we’ve been playing.

“They (the Saints) can hit, they were squaring her (Goettel) up a little bit when she missed her spots. We need to make plays behind her. St. Charles East, as always, is strong.”

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