Saints take win to shed
ST. CHARLES – Katie Stengler pitched a shutout and RaeAnne Payleitner smacked a home run, but it still couldn't save the St. Charles East softball stars a trip to the shed.
Rain dropped on and after the final outs of Tuesday's IHSA Class 4A St. Charles East Regional semifinal, leaving East and Conant confined to their dugouts and a nearby storage shack the best place to assess the Saints' 5-0 win.
Given East's penchant for stockpiling offense, the setting fit.
"The thing with our team is that sometimes we struggle our first time around," said Payleitner, a sophomore catcher. "But that second or third time around, once one person gets a hit, we all kind of just follow through and we all do what we need to do. We get on base and we get those runners around."
Cougars freshman right-hander Briana Cavin held East down for the first three innings, surrendering only Steph Roan's single to the right side in the second. She struck out five in the early stages, showing the Saints (24-9-1) glimpses of the pitcher that no-hit Willowbrook in an opening round game Monday.
Cavin (14-11) would fan 10 East batters to give her 224 strikeouts in her debut season, yet what she really needed to sidestep was beyond her control.
Conant (15-19), committed four errors, including two in East's decisive three-run fourth. Payleitner accounted for Cavin's only earned run one inning later, hitting her seventh home run to score Pamela Sommer, who reached when Cougars shortstop Allie Bauch threw low to first base.
"Our focus is to put it on the ground, put it on the ground, and the kids buy in and they believe," Saints coach Kelly Barnett said. "That was a phenomenal pitching performance on Conant's part, but that's how the postseason's played. You're going to find great pitchers and you're going to have to nickel and dime them until you scratch something together.
"If you can scratch something together, really, that's the story."
East finished with four hits to back Stengler (7-4), who spaced three hits and six strikeouts while proving equally sharp on both sides of a 22-minute weather delay during the top of the third.
To Stengler, the stoppage felt more like five minutes as she approached it using a familiar angle.
"That's when we're up to bat," she said. "I just kept my sweatshirt on, and I was good."
Payleitner pronounces herself "ready to go anytime" but hadn't solved Cavin until the fifth. Making the first out of the Saints' rally one inning earlier, she watched teammates Kayla Brooks and Bethany Carrignan fight for run-scoring singles.
With "the wheels churning" in her head, as Barnett put it, Payleitner had seen enough to send Cavin's second pitch over the right-field fence her next time up.
"She was coming right in at us all day, and I had difficulty because I was getting underneath the ball," Payleitner said. "But that one, I just focused on keeping my hands on top of the ball and driving that first pitch. And it went."
East will play the winner of today's semifinal between Glenbard North and Batavia in the regional finals at 11 a.m. Saturday. The Saints topped the Panthers, 1-0, to open the season in March.