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Naperville Central keeps pace in DVC
Updated: May 11, 2011 9:10PM
It is safe to say Naperville Central pitcher Alyssa Wunderlich is on a roll.
The SIU-bound senior, who is coming off a no-hitter against Glenbard East, held yet another opponent scoreless. Wunderlich’s seven-strikeout, three-hit and one-walk performance led the Redhawks to a 3-0 rivalry win over host Naperville North on Wednesday in DuPage Valley Conference action.
Wunderlich (11-3) has allowed just four runs in 68 innings.
“As long as they don’t score, I’m happy,” said Wunderlich, who threw 117 pitches.
“Alyssa threw great,” Naperville North coach Jerry Kedziora added. “She’s a dominant pitcher. There’s another level there when it comes time to her pitching. It’s hard to get something going against her.”
The win keeps Naperville Central (18-6) tied for first with West Chicago in the DVC standings at 9-2. Naperville North is now 10-10, 4-7.
“It makes every game that much more interesting,” Naperville Central shortstop Kelsey Gonzalez said of being at the top of the DVC. “But beating Naperville North was huge for us. Every game is huge for us right now.”
“Pretty much every conference game is like the championship game,” Wunderlich added. “We just have to play every game like it’s our last one. We just have to take it game-by-game.”
The Redhawks scored twice in the third and once in the fifth. Jill Andreoni led the third off with a walk and moved to second on a wild pitch. Nicole Kappelman then singled, got to second on a Naperville North error that also pushed Andreoni to third. She ended up scoring on the only RBI single of the game from Kelsey Gonzalez. Kappelman got home on a Meghan Griffin ground out RBI.
Kappelman also scored the third Naperville Central run when she led the off the fifth getting to second on an error. She advanced to second on Juliet Tassi’s sacrifice bunt and scored on the Huskies’ third error of the game.
“They’ve been doing great,” Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum said of the offense. “It just puts a lot of pressure on the defense when you have to deal with (players who) have a great eye, speed and can put the ball in play ... we are confident Meghan or Kelsey can get runners in.”
The closest Naperville North came to scoring was when Tara Degl’Innocenti led off the second with a double. Emily Dieckmann also drew a leadoff walk in the fifth, but the closest her pinch-runner, Amy Thayer, could get was second base.
“(Naperville Central) didn’t make any errors; they played awesome,” Kedziora said. “If they keep playing defense like that, they are going to go a long way. We just made a few mistakes, and they got the hits when they needed to.”
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