KANKAKEE — Ellie Haggard and Libby Spaulding still remember it as though it was yesterday. As freshman three years ago, the pair played pivotal roles in a two-run win against Bishop McNamara, what had been the Boilermakers’ first softball win in more than a decade against their All-City rivals.

In Friday’s matchup between the Boilers and the Fightin’ Irish at McNamara, the pair did more of the same, with Haggard smacking a game-breaking three-run home run and Spaulding twirling a three-hit shutout in a 9-0 Boilers win, their fourth in as many years against the Irish.

“It’s really awesome, especially coming into my freshman year, we hadn’t beat them in more than 10 years,” Spaulding recalled. “It just feels really good that we were able to flip the standard, and now we’re expected to win.

“I’m really happy to be able to turn that around.”

The Boilers (20-8) reached the 20-win mark for the third straight season and fourth time under head coach Haylee Beck, who took over in 2016-17. McNamara fell to 13-9.

Bella Pusateri doubled to open the game and eventually came around to score on a Haggard groundout to her shortstop counterpart Teagan McCue. That was the only run through the first half of the game, as Spaulding and Irish hurler Kirsten Clodi both locked in to quickly send the game to its midway point.

As lifelong friends, Spaulding said battling Clodi on Friday just added to what’s already an emotional crosstown rivalry.

“It makes it even more emotional,” Spaulding said. “She’s been one of my closest friends my whole life, and it just makes it more fun and intense to be able to be competitive with one of my best friends.”

With Pusateri’s early run the only one on the board as the game quickly made its way to the bottom of the fourth, it was Pusateri who kept the Irish off the scoreboard themselves with perhaps the area defensive play of the year, just a half inning after McNamara right fielder Trinity Heigh made a web gem of her own on a Lydia Hammond screamer.

With Irish catcher Dani White at the plate and Bridget Bertrand on first with no one out, White sent Spaulding’s offering deep to left field, where Pusateri leapt into the fence, catching the ball perpendicular to the top of it, preventing at least an RBI double, if not a two-run White home run.

“Right off the bat, I knew I had to get my feet moving to get to the ball quickly,” Pusateri said. “I didn’t even know the fence was there, if I’m being honest. I just kept going until it was in my glove.”

The Irish ended up unable to score in the inning, and with momentum joining them in the visiting dugout, the Boilers broke free a half inning later. An Ella Perkins single and Pusateri bunt hit put a pair on for Tristen Woods, whose sacrifice bunt put ducks on the pond for Haggard, an Illinois commit ranked amongst the top position players in the country.

And on the first pitch of the at-bat, the two-time Daily Journal Co-Player of the Year (with Spaulding) sent a blast that cleared the center field scoreboard and added three runs to the Boilers’ side of it.

Haggard said the Boilers needed a jolt to add run support for Spaulding against a sound-hitting Irish team, and while her 45th career homer might have directly done that, Pusateri’s catch is what really lit the fire.

“It got me going,” Haggard said. “I came back into the huddle and said, ‘If that doesn’t get you going, I don’t know what does.’

“Then, right off the bat, Ella started it off, we kept getting runners on, and I was able to do that.”

The Boilers made it a six-run fifth in total, getting another two runs on a Morgan Chimino single and another on Shannon Lee’s base knock. After admitting in previous games this season to not quite being able to string together timely hits, Beck saw her Boilers’ progress in that department first-hand with their explosive fifth, as well as when they got another two runs across in the seventh.

“I feel like early on in our season, maybe even midseason, Ellie’s homer would have been it and we would have coasted,” Beck said. “We didn’t do that today, and I really love that our remaining five came not on bombs, but getting someone on and cashing it in.”

The win put the Boilers halfway to a fourth straight All-City championship, pending their May 17 matchup with Kankakee and a postponed meeting between the Irish and the Kays that presumably will be made up this week. And similar to Haggard and Spaulding, Beck fondly remembers when that streak started in 2021 and the message she shared with the then-youngsters.

“To four-peat against Mac, we talked a lot about how we want the precedent to be set,” Beck said. “It wasn’t just one or two years; we wanted longevity here at Bradley and want to be the best team in the area for a long time to come.”

And as her four years have almost come and gone in the blink of an eye — the goal is to win the program’s first IHSA State championship next month — Haggard quickly has seen herself go from the youngster learning the ropes from the older girls to the older girl getting behind the young wave of talent around her, such as freshmen like Woods and Lee, sophomores like Hammond and juniors like Pusateri and catcher Suttyn Hop.

“During my last at-bat [Friday], I was like, ‘Dang, this is my last time hitting against a Bishop McNamara pitcher,’” Haggard said. “It was kind of emotional, but looking back to freshman year, I still remember hitting a double to the fence, screaming to the dugout and my older teammates getting hyped for me.

“Today, I got to get hyped for my younger teammates. That was pretty cool.”

<strong>STAT BOOK</strong>

Spaulding struck out 13, walked two and allowed three hits in her shutout. Haggard was 2-for-4 with her three-run homer, a double and four RBIs. Pusateri doubled, singled and scored twice. Chimino had a pair of hits and RBIs apiece and scored. Hop had two hits and scored twice. Perkins had a pair of hits, an RBI and scored. Lee had a pair of hits and an RBI.

Bertrand went 2-for-3 for the Irish, and White added a single. McCue and Gabby Burnett walked. Clodi allowed six earned runs on 13 hits, a walk and four strikeouts in a complete game.

<strong>UP NEXT</strong>

After a home doubleheader against St. Edward on Saturday, the Irish are scheduled to be off until a 6 p.m. game at Marian Central Catholic on Friday. The Boilers visit Stagg at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday.