Prep softball: Sycamore’s season ends in regional semis with loss to Belvidere

FREEPORT – Call it luck, karma or whatever, but Sycamore softball coach Jill Carpenter said it ran out Friday in an 8-2 loss to Belvidere in a Class 3A Freeport Regional semifinal, ending the Spartans’ season.

“At the start of the year, if you told me we were going to win 19 games, I’d have told you that you were nuts,” Carpenter said. “This group did a real good job overall of maximizing themselves in a lot of our games. It just kind of fell apart a little bit today, which is unfortunate.”

The season ends for the Spartans (19-14), while the Bucs (17-8) go on to face Belvidere North for the regional title Saturday.

Junior Alyssa Wilkerson pitched five innings of relief for the Spartans, allowing two earned runs, three total. She struck out five and allowed four hits.

“I thought for the most part she did a good job coming in and kind of keeping us in the game for as long as she could,” Carpenter said. “We have a lot of room to grow there on the mound and a lot of people coming back.”

McKyler Morris started the scoring with a two-run homer for the Bucs in the top of the second off starter Becca Allen. The Spartans got one back in the bottom of the second when Emily Puentes doubled home Chelsea Born.

In the top of the third, Sophia Hulsey singled to start the inning and the next two reached, including on an error, to chase Allen from the game.

Another error ended up leading to another two runs that inning and a 5-1 lead. Sycamore cut it to three in the bottom of the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Haley Von Schnase. But that was it for Sycamore’s run production.

“This was probably one of our worst games of the year, overall, collectively,” Carpenter said. “We just didn’t get a lot accomplished that we had hoped to offensively, defensively and on the mound.”

McKenna Morris pitched a complete game for the Bucs, striking out one and allowing five hits - three to Born.

“She’s very calm, she’s composed, she trusts her defense,” Belvidere coach Amy Douglas said. “Only one strikeout on the day, which means she trusts her defense to make those plays. I thought she did a great job.”

All five hits were from seniors for the Spartans – Born had a 3-for-3 day, Puentes had the RBI double, and Jalyna Polichnowsi had an infield single in the seventh.

“It wasn’t pretty. She muscled a hit to the shortstop,” Carpenter said. “But I’m happy for her. That kid has worked her butt off for us, and you want kids like that to succeed. For us to get to circle a one in the book for her last at-bat in high school, that’s great.”

Carpenter said it was a very solid season for a young team, and although the five seniors will be missed – including Paige Collie, who set the school’s home run record last year but was hurt for the last part of this season – she’s excited for how the returners can build off this season.

“Our defense has saved us so many games this year. And our offense.” Carpenter said. “We have not been a strikeout staff. Teams put the ball in play, and honestly this has been one of the better outfields we’ve ever had. They were fine today. Our defense has won us plenty of games and we didn’t do ourselves any favors today. I don’t know if karma, luck caught up to us, but overall our offense and defense won us 19 games for the most part.”