Sports
New Trier Softball: Trevians Fall On Walkoff Home Run
St. Charles North 2, New Trier 1. The Trevians will play for third place in Class 4A against Benet Academy Saturday at 4:30 p.m. after a stunning semifinal loss Friday.
EAST PEORIA – A rally in the top of the sixth inning to tie Friday’s Class 4A state semifinal game against St. Charles North kept New Trier’s hopes of winning the program’s first state title alive.
Moments later, however, that hope ended in shocking fashion.
With the score tied at 1-1 and one out in the bottom of the seventh, St. Charles North’s Annie Korth jumped on the first Brigit Leuter offering and crushed it out to dead center to push the North Stars into the state title game against Moline.
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New Trier will play for third place at 4:30 p.m. at East Side Centre in East Peoria against Benet Academy, who lost to Moline, 5-3, in the other semifinal game.
“Stunned,” New Trier coach John Caldwell said of his team’s mood after the game. “Our pitcher has just been outstanding all year, and one pitch got away from her. She had such an outstanding game. It’s tough that she has to leave on that not. I wouldn’t take any other pitcher. She’s somebody that’s just led us like a champion all the way through the postseason.”
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Ieuter (16-9) was brilliant early on. Through 4 1/3 innings, she struck out seven and didn’t allow a hit. But with one out in the fifth, she hit Korth with a pitch and she wasn’t as sharp the rest of the way. Amanda Ciran followed with a double, the first hit for North (32-3), and Emily Watts followed with an RBI single to open a 1-0 lead.
New Trier (23-12) responded quickly off of Ciran (24-1) in the sixth, however. The Trevians’ leading hitter all season, senior Chelsea Delaney, came through with a one-out single and pinch runner Jessica Tetzlaff eventually scored on a wild pitch to tie the game at 1-1.
“This is a team that has gotten behind and came back big against Lake Zurich in the supersectional,” Caldwell said. “Got behind today. There’s never any lacking of confidence. These girls are convinced that they can come back from any situation. They’ve got so much heart.”
Jackie Stern singled and stole second with two outs in the top of the seventh, but was stranded there for New Trier. That set up Korth’s heroics with one out in the bottom of the inning to send North to the state championship game for the first time in program history.
“It wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to go,” Ieuter said of the final pitch. “I think that had an effect on it. It was a really nice hit, but I missed my spot.”
The Trevians now have to shake off that loss and prepare for the third-place game Saturday. It will be the fourth time that New Trier has played for third at state, with the only third-place finish coming in 1987.
“We’ve got to put this one behind us,” Caldwell said. “There’s no way that we can win (the state title). It’s over. We have to come out here tomorrow and play good, aggressive softball. I think this team is capable of doing that.”
