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North Stars survive Leyden in 10th
Updated: June 2, 2011 10:10PM
When St. Charles North’s Natalie Capone and Loren Cihlar atoned for their fifth-inning mistakes Thursday, the North Stars found themselves in Saturday’s Schaumburg Class 4A Sectional softball championship game.
Capone’s fielding blunder let the tying run score, and Cihlar’s base-running snafu contributed to turning the sectional semifinal against Leyden into a marathon 10-inning affair. But in the bottom of the 10th, Capone put down a perfect safety squeeze bunt and Cihlar came racing home for the winning run in a 3-2 St. Charles North victory, one which earned the Stars a title game showdown at 11 a.m. Saturday against top-seeded Elk Grove.
“It was such a long battle, it was such a long game,” said winning pitcher Amanda Ciran, who gave up only four hits to the Eagles (27-8). “It was two great teams going after a game.”
Cihlar had failed to go halfway to second on a deep fly ball Taylor Russell hit in the fifth inning. When the ball landed just short of the fence for a one-out double in a 2-2 game, Cihlar then got thrown out trying to scramble to third. And in the top of the fifth, Stars shortstop Capone didn’t get to second base in time to try and nab Jessica Dubrock stealing second in a first-and-third situation with two outs. It allowed the throw down to go through into center so Michelle Sansone could trot home from third and tie the game at 2.
“It could have been adrenaline — we were all excited,” Capone said about those mistakes and an uncharacteristic four Stars errors. “We need to work on that for the next team, that’s for sure.
“Luckily it didn’t cost us the game this time.”
That’s because Capone put down a perfect bunt with one out and Cihlar, at third after daring baserunning, made it pay off. Cihlar beat the throw to second on a potential force play following a ground ball that Ashley Seering hit, then got up and alertly went to third when the throw on the attempted force got away a few feet into the outfield.
On the first pitch, Seering stole second uncontested. On the second pitch, Capone put down the safety squeeze and the throw from third baseman Maura Quinlan came in too high and also too late to prevent a Stars victory.
“Lately I’ve been bunting a lot more because I had broken a bone in my wrist,” Capone said. “It was actually my call. Coach let us decide. I play in summer with Lauren so we’re used to those types of plays because we’re both slappers and we know what we’re going to do. I told her, ‘You’re going on the second pitch.’
“Actually, they were playing me pretty far back. I was pretty shocked. And Lauren is so quick, she made it. It was all her.”
And a little hard work. Coach Tom Poulin had the Stars practicing the squeeze bunts earlier in the week to the point where pitchers were wondering when they were going to finally get to quit.
“Natalie is one of our best bunters,” Poulin said. “Lauren has got a ton of speed at third. We just worked on it yesterday for about 30 to 35 minutes. So the kids were confident. They executed.”
So did Ciran (21-1). She struck out eight, walked three and didn’t allow an earned run in outdueling Leyden star Morgan Maize (24-5), who gave up 10 hits, hit a batter and struck out 11. She also shut down Maize’s smoking hot bat. Maize went 0-for-4 moving up to the leadoff position for the first time this season. Twice Ciran struck out Maize.
“I knew if we got past this game, and if we were going to see Elk Grove, they’d do to her what they did to (West Chicago’s DePaul-bound Mary) Connolly — they would intentionally walk her all day long,” Leyden coach Kurt Schuett said. “I thought, ‘We’ll put her in the leadoff spot and if they walk her we can bunt her over.’
“Normally, we do a better job of small-balling, but today Ciran had a real nice changeup and that’s really tough to small-ball when she’s changing up speeds like that.”
Maize gutted out the full game despite a lower back injury that caused her to tear up at one point.
The Stars got to her in the third when Sydney Russell, Cihlar and Taylor Russell singled in succession. Sydney Russell scored on her sister’s hit to center. In the fourth, the lead hit 2-0 when Annie Korth’s single chased home Capone, who’d singled and moved up on a wild pitch.
However, Leyden’s Sansone scored on the throw into center in the fifth, after Kelly Nessling had reached on Ciran’s error, moved up a sacrifice bunt and came in on Brigid Mackey’s RBI single. It stayed 2-2 until the 10th, with both sides failing at one serious scoring chance each from the sixth to the ninth.
Dana Sullivan had two of Leyden’s four hits, while Cihlar and Taylor Russell had three hits each for North, which has a difficult task ahead against Elk Grove (32-4).
“That’s the best team I’ve seen this year,” Poulin said. “We got to take a good look at them and I haven’t seen anybody better than Elk Grove.”
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