Mighty Macs silence Oak Forest

Katie Sears gave credit to the defense behind her, the catcher in front of her, and the batter who followed her in the order.

She'd need a mirror, however, to complete the story of Mother McAuley's 1-0 victory over visiting Oak Forest on Saturday.

Sears, the batter, led off the bottom of the first inning by working Oak Forest ace Emily Norton for a walk. With teammate Stevie Bradich at the plate, she stole second and went to third on a wild pitch before scoring on Bradich's RBI groundout to short.

Aggressiveness will get you everywhere.

"We always do better when we jump on them in that first inning," Sears said. "That helped us out."

Sears, the pitcher, made the run stand up for five innings before senior Jackie McGivern came on to close the Bengals out over the final two innings.

Des Aramburu and Sarah Garcia got their team's only two hits -- a pair of singles -- but the Mighty Macs played solid defense behind their dealing duo to improve to 10-6.

The Bengals (11-7), who scored a big 4-3 South Suburban Blue victory on Thursday against Lemont, had their chances Saturday.

In the first inning, Carly Norton and Alyssa Prucak walked, but Sears shut the door.

In the fourth, Prucak singled and Ryan Boss was hit by a pitch, but again Sears got the job done.

In the seventh, Emily Norton and Zalud both singled, but with two outs McGivern slipped a called third strike past Haylee Swanson to end the game.

"We put runners on base; we just couldn't get the big hits and push anybody across," Oak Forest coach Paige Stryczek said. "[Mother McAuley] played defense very well. What can you do?

"We're taking too many pitches at the plate and getting ourselves behind in the count, which is making it hard to hit. That's unfortunately pretty much why we lost today."