Nolan, Wheaton North get back into it
Off a pitching mound since Monday, Wheaton North’s Kahla Nolan felt less than her best warming up Friday.
“Just not as good as I know it can be,” Nolan said, “not as on and not as sharp. We took a break, stepped away from it, came back right before the game started and it was on.”
Was Nolan ever on.
The Falcons senior limited Naperville North to 3 hits with zero walks, striking out five, in Wheaton North’s 4-0 win in Wheaton.
Nolan’s (7-2) shutout was her first of the year, and she ran her scoreless streak to 18 innings after beating Wheaton Warrenville South 4-1 in 12 innings Monday.
Nolan, recently committed to Division III DePauw, was matched up Friday with a future teammate in Naperville North’s Emily Dieckmann.
Nolan effectively held Naperville North’s speed game in check. Huskies leadoff hitter Sammy Marshall, with a .500 on-base percentage coming in, was 1-for-3.
Marshall reached on a bunt single with two outs in the third and stole second but was stranded there. Naperville North only had one baserunner reach the rest of the game.
“Kahla came out and just got the job done again today,” Falcons coach Karen Calabrese said. “Keeping Marshall off the bases forces them to change their game plan and works in our favor.”
Wheaton North (9-4, 3-0 DuPage Valley Conference) wasted no time jumping ahead. Katie Thornton reached on an error leading off the first, and Natalie Leahy beat out a bunt single in front of home plate. Two outs later, Rachel Holaway ripped a clutch 2-strike, 2-run double to left.
Paige Wilson singled and scored on a Holaway sacrifice fly in the third to make it 3-0, and in the fifth Wilson singled and came around on a hard-hit ball Holaway ball off the third baseman’s glove.
Nolan got two defensive gems behind her. Wilson made a running basket catch on a low liner hit to shortstop in the fourth and Tiffany Gaimari made a shoestring catch on a ball hit to short center leading off the seventh.
Naperville North (6-5, 1-2) was playing for the first time in eight days, and the rust showed. The Huskies committed 4 errors, made a couple miscommunications in the field and had a runner doubled off first on a pop-up to the catcher.
“DVC softball, you can’t make mistakes,” Huskies coach Jerry Kedziora said, “and they jumped all over them. Hitting-wise, we just couldn’t come up with the big hits. Defensively, we were just bad and we couldn’t get a bunt down to save our life. Not our day.”
No time for the Huskies to lick their wounds, as they play at Naperville Central at 10 a.m. today in a DVC makeup game.
“Hopefully this is a good wake-up call for the girls and they’ll come out fired up,” Kedziora said. “We play like this, they’ll eat us alive.”