McGurn, Fillies win their way back to state final

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EAST PEORIA — Barrington's Jessica McGurn is about ready for her first summer in memory without softball. But she has one game remaining, her second state championship game in a row.

McGurn was 4-for-4 with a home run as the Fillies defeated Lake Park 6-1 in a Class 4A semifinal Friday at EastSide Centre to reach the state title game for the second year in a row.

Barrington, which lost to Normal 1-0 last June, will face Lincoln-Way Central for the title Saturday at 7 p.m. after the Lancers, whose 19-game winning streak was snapped, play New Trier for third place at 4:30.

“I’m going to Colorado State but I won’t be playing softball after this,” McGurn said. It’s going to be hard. My dad is going to go crazy. With my sisters, he’s had softball for 14 summers.

“I couldn’t be in a better program or play for a better coach than Coach P [Perry Peterson]. We has made every single team here the best it could be. I just wanted to get as far as possible my senior year, and maybe go one step farther. I was just trying to make contact every time. One the home run, I had two strikes and made a lot of contact.”

Leading 2-1 in the seventh, the Fillies (31-6) loaded the bases on three Lake Park errors. Then, Michal Jane Maropis punched a two-out, three-run double to right.

“I just wanted to clear the bases and get as many runs as we could,” Maropis said. “We’re working as underdogs. We lost a lot of seniors from last year, so this is just incredible.”

McGurn's fourth hit drove in the final run.

“Their pitcher [Barrington’s Kim Cygan] was good and she hit her spots,” Lake Park shortstop Lynsey Ciezki said. “At the end, we just fell apart. We got down on ourselves. It happens to the best of us.”

Cygan improved to 30-6, allowing three hits and striking out nine.

“This was my first game pitching at state,” Cygan said. “I was nervous until my first strikeout [which was the first batter she faced].”

“This team has come a long way in a short amount of time,” Peterson said. “Would you have thought we’d be back in the title game?”

Barrington struck first in the second inning when Cygan reached on an error and scored on a two-out single by Kiersten Tinkoff.

The Fillies made it 2-0 in the fourth on a two-out home run from McGurn, her fourth. But the Lancers got in the board in their half of the fourth when Ciezki singled and scored from third on a fly to right by Alexis Munaco.

Contributing: Randy Whalen