Softball: St. Charles East beats Huntley in pitchers’ duel

MARENGO – Huntley’s Jori Heard and Reese Hunkins provided the loudest contact against St. Charles East pitcher Izzy Howe on Saturday morning, both smashing line drives to deep center field in the fifth and sixth innings.

Either hard hit could have given the Red Raiders a one-run cushion in ideal conditions.

Instead, Saints center fielder Nikki Johnston tracked down both balls knocked down by the wind a few feet in front of the fence.

A leadoff single by St. Charles East first baseman CiCi Wilson in the top of the seventh led to the only run between the teams, and the Saints went on to beat Huntley, 1-0, in the first game of the Marengo Invitational.

“Unfortunately, we hit a couple of balls that the wind hung up, and that’s the way it goes,” Raiders coach Mark Petryniec said. “But we’re not going to hang our heads about anything that happened today. It was a good game between two great teams.

“Against a competitive pitcher, we just wanted to have good approaches today. We could have executed a little better on our small ball, but everything is a learning experience to get us through conference and the postseason.”

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

The game-winning run that scored in the seventh came after Huntley was unable to field a bunt by Mel Stathopoulos following Wilson’s leadoff hit to center field. The Raiders fielded the bunt on the first-base side, but threw over the first baseman’s head and into right field, which allowed the runner to reach first.

Alyse Price, who was pinch running for Wilson, made it from first to third on the errant throw.

Stathopoulos tried for second, but was thrown out on the return throw from the outfield. Price broke for home when she saw the throw go into second base. Huntley shortstop Reese Hunkins then fired home, but Price beat the throw to give St. Charles East a 1-0 lead.

Howe retired the first two batters in the bottom of the seventh inning before giving up an infield hit to Madison Rozanski. Howe got the next batter, Meghan Ryan, on a groundout to the pitcher for the last out.

Howe, a senior, gave up only four hits in the complete-game win with nine strikeouts and three walks. For Huntley, Heard allowed the one unearned run on only two hits. She struck out 16 and walked one.

St. Charles East coach Jarod Gutesha thought Saturday’s game was similar to the teams’ state title game from 2019.

“The balls weren’t flying, and it was a game that was eerily similar to when [Huntley] won the state championship,” Gutesha said. “The way that we scored in the top of the seventh, we had the same situation in the bottom of the seventh [at state], but they ended up getting the runner out at first and throwing our runner out at third for a double play.

“[Huntley] had its chances with runners in scoring position, and we had a couple with a runner on second. In those situations, you’re just looking for one person to get the ball into the grass and get on. CiCi getting that hit back up the middle was great. She’s been on it all year long, it doesn’t matter who she’s facing.”

Howe expected another close game between two state-ranked teams. Huntley beat St. Charles East, 2-1, last spring, with Howe starting that game for the Saints.

“It’s definitely a tight game against them, you never know what’s going to happen,” Howe said. “You’ve got to play your best at all times. We tried not to swing at [Heard’s] rise ball because we know she has a really killer rise ball. Just try to get on base, don’t have an over-the fence-mentality. Swing for base hits.”

Heard, too, was excited to play a team of the Saints’ caliber.

“We were really excited to play them again,” said Heard, who is now 8-4 with a 0.76 ERA, 172 strikeouts and eight walks over 83 innings. “I was trying to hit my spots as well as I could and keep us in the game. We love playing good competition because it will make us better in the long run.”

Heard, Clara Hudgens, Zoe Doherty and Rozanski had hits for Huntley. Katie Mitchell added two steals.