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Sports

Mid-season Report: Wheaton North Softball Team Hanging in There

Falcons are hoping to get back on track after dropping four straight DVC games during the first week of May.

Record (through Thursday, May 5): 9-8 overall, 3-4 in the DVC

Coach Karen Calabrese’s mid-season team grade: B+

Update: Calabrese said this first week of May, with a full schedule of conference games—including two games each against West Chicago and Glenbard North Friday and Saturday (May 6-7)—should give the Falcons “a much better idea of where we stand.” Unfortunately the Falcons dropped four straight DVC contests prior to Friday’s conference matchup against Glenbard North. Wheaton North fell to Glenbard East and Naperville Central by identical 4-2 scores, and was shut out twice by West Chicago. Prior to this week, the Falcons were undefeated in the DVC. They registered a dramatic over their crosstown rivals, Wheaton South, in 12 innings April 25, and blanked Naperville North 3-0 April 29 behind the three-hit pitching of Kahla Nolan.

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Quoting Coach Calabrese

On the team’s offense: “We’ve made a few changes in the lineup, and hope those will work out to our benefit. (Katie Thornton is leading off.) I broke up my lefties (and Tiffany Gaimari) and spread them out in the lineup a little more. Tiffany Gaimari was our No. 2 hitter; she’s down in the No. 7 spot. Three (Wilson) and four (Kelsey Ullrich) remain the same. We’re seeing the ball better, putting the ball more in play and starting to get those two-out hits that we’ve been missing more at the beginning of the season.”

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On the team’s defensive play: “We’ve been playing much better. Last week (week of April 25-30) we only got in two games, but counting Monday (April 25, the 12-inning game vs. WWS) it was like we played three games. We made an error in the first inning and later in the game, but we were error-free against Naperville North. We’re looking much, much better.”

On the team’s pitching: “Kahla Nolan has been doing great for us. We haven’t had too many opportunities to get Katie Thornton on the mound. She’s been struggling with her location a little bit; hopefully she keeps working on it. We may need her because of all our back-to-back games.”

On the most pleasant development so far this season, team-wise or individually: “Nolan has been the most pleasant surprise. We were looking for her to step up, and so far this year she’s been doing a good job of that. In the past, what hurt her the most was when she missed a spot, she’d miss it over the plate. This year she’s doing a much better job of getting ahead and staying ahead of hitters.”

On what the Falcons must do in order to be successful the rest of the season: “We need to keep playing confident and aggressive. There have been a couple of games offensively where we’ve struggled a little bit. But if we play like we did (the week of April 25-30) we should be in pretty good shape.”

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