This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Prep Softball: After Tough Match, Spartans Fall Short to Glenbard South

Glenbard South scores five runs over the final two innings to post a 7-1 victory. Laura Behnke homers for the Spartans.

St. Francis, one of the area’s better Class 3A teams, went toe-to-toe with another formidable 3A opponent, Glenbard South, through five innings of its nonconference contest Saturday morning.

However, the Raiders broke a 2-1 game open by scoring a run in the sixth and plating four more in the seventh to post a 7-1 triumph.

After the Raiders grabbed a 1-0 lead during their half of the first, St. Francis answered with a run of its own. Laura Behnke, the Spartans’ senior center fielder, launched a 2-1 pitch by Glenbard South ace and Eastern Michigan recruit Jess Wilkes over the center field fence.

Find out what's happening in Wheatonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But Wilkes settled down and retired 13 straight Spartan batters at one point between the second and sixth innings.

“It was a good game,” St. Francis coach Ralph Remus said. “They’ve got a nice team and they hit the ball. We’ve got to get used to that caliber of competition.

Find out what's happening in Wheatonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 “She (Wilkes) did a nice job changing speeds and hitting her spots with her pitches. She’s a tough pitcher and we can’t feel bad about that if she does her job. We threatened in the last inning, but it was one of those games.”

St. Francis’ first two hitters in the bottom of the seventh, Paige Davis and Emily Karpinski, both reached base on singles. But they were both forced out on a double play.

Spartan starter Taylor Ronchetto held the Raiders—who return 10 starters off of last season’s 32-victory sectional semifinalist squad—in check for the most part through the first 5 1/3 innings. She was touched for only three hits through six complete innings.

Then came the seventh.

“What I think Taylor and my catcher (Blaine Carragher) lost the last couple of innings, they got away from changing speeds,” Remus said. “I think we could have used that because they were pretty much dialed into her speed at the end there, and we needed to change that a little bit to throw them off-balance.”

Karpinski collected two singles for the Spartans (13-4, 8-0). Behnke made a nice diving catch in the seventh inning to rob a Glenbard South batter of a base hit.

Earlier in the week, St. Francis blasted Walther Lutheran 11-1 and handed Rosary a 5-0 defeat as Ronchetto picked up the shutout victory. Their Wednesday game vs. St. Edward was cancelled because of (what else?) rain.

“We could have been sharper today, but other than that we’ve been playing very well,” Remus said. “Our defense has been playing very well and we’ve been hitting well so no complaints. We’re playing like we should be playing mid-season.”

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?