Benet alive in sectional, the 'hardest in the state'
No-hit bid backs coach's assesment
Benet looked unflappable in Saturday's Naperville North regional final with Neuqua Valley, up until the seventh inning anyway.
That's when Summer McKenzie ended Redwings pitcher Meghan Eastman's no-hit bid with a single to right-center field. Eastman buckled down to strand two runners in scoring position in the 4-1 win.
NV 000 000 1 -- 1 1 4
BA 010 003 X -- 4 5 3
WP: Meghan Eastman; LP: Colleen Hohman.
Strikeouts: NV -- Hohman 7; BA -- Eastman 6.
"I don't know if they got tight or a little too loose," Redwings coach Jerry Schilf said. "We've been in tight situations all year long. The key was getting out of it before (No. 3 hitter Jenna) Marsalli came up again."
Eastman was also happy to escape the seventh with a win.
"I think the first priority was it's a playoff game, so get the win," she said. "It would have been nice to get the no-hitter, but what I really wanted was the win."
Neuqua finishes the year 22-8 while Benet runs its mark to 31-5. Wildcats starter Colleen Hohman finishes the year 16-6, and Eastman now holds a 22-4 won-lost mark.
"Benet played a really solid game," Neuqua coach Michelle Schmidt said. "We put the pressure on but it was too late. You can't wait till the top of the seventh to do that."
She called the sectional the "hardest in the state." Schmidt also lauded her relatively young team for its impressive season.
"We had only two seniors and, more than just our record, it was our chemistry that really impressed me," she said. "These are great young ladies who are great softball players but also good people off the field."
Benet (31-5) advances to Tuesday's sectional at Neuqua Valley.
The Redwings got their first run in the second. Nora McGuire reached on a dropped third strike, Tracy Griffin pinch-ran and moved to second on Lindsey Rohan's second sacrifice bunt of the year and took third on a wild pitch.
Griffin scored on Mikayla Panko's RBI single. Panko slashed her hit into the gap in right-center with a two-strike count, something the Redwings did well all day.
Against the hard-throwing Hohman, Benet's philosophy was simple: "Just short swings," Schilf said. "We're not going for home runs today."
The score stayed at 1-0 until the bottom of the sixth, when Benet added three insurance runs that proved to be the difference in the game.
Courtney Makowski and Shellie Schaffer each collected two hits for the Redwings. Panko had the only other base knock.
Hohman fanned seven and Eastman struck out six, both totals below their respective averages. Those lower-than-usual numbers were more a testament to the teams' offensive approach.
Benet's Schaffer, like Panko, stroked a two-strike single in the game.
"We wanted to be patient against (Hohman)," Schaffer said. "I was looking for a pitch I could hit and move the runners around."
The teams combined to make seven errors, with Neuqua committing four.
