Softball: Ottawa answers Streator’s big inning with one of its own in 14-7 triumph

STREATOR – It’s not easy to do, but there is a perfect response to a team batting around and putting a crooked number up on the scoreboard.

Do it right back to them.

The Ottawa Pirates counterpointed host Streator’s six-run bottom of the third inning with a seven-run top of the fourth, retaking the lead on their way to a 14-7 victory Thursday over the Route 23 rival Bulldogs.

Maura Condon was 3 for 5 with a first-inning home run and four runs batted in for Ottawa (4-1). Her and her teammates’ bats got her off the hook for a negative pitching decision after Condon (2 1/3 IP, 5 R, 1 ER, 5 H, 4 BB, 4 K) was relieved by eventual winning pitcher Peyton Bryson (4 2/3 IP, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 2 K) in the midst of the Bulldogs’ six-run home half of the third.

“I feel like our bats are super hot up and down the lineup,” Condon said. “Everyone’s getting it done, and I think that helps a lot, gives a lot of confidence to a pitcher.”

Fellow Pirates junior Hailey Larsen drove in two runs on a pair of sacrifice flies, the second of which was dropped and scored an additional run. Freshman Bobbi Snook blasted a no-doubt-about-it, two-run homer in the sixth.

In truth, though, most of the Pirates’ runs – most of both teams’ runs, in fact – were unearned and came as the result of errors, most of them misplayed fly balls on a chilly but relatively windless day.

Condon’s first-inning solo shot over the center field fence off Bulldogs starting pitcher McKenna Ondrey (5 1/3 IP, 13 R, 5 ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 2 K) put the Pirates ahead.

“I wasn’t really thinking about hitting a home run,” she said. “I was just trying to barrel something up, especially off Kenna, she’s a pretty solid pitcher. I’m just happy it ended up being a home run.”

The Pirates made it 2-0 in the third when Reese Purcell tripled and scored on the first of Larsen’s two sacrifice flies. Streator (0-2) then exploded in a six-run third highlighted by RBI singles off the bats of Lily Kupec, Joyce Walkin and Makenna Ondrey as well as an Ava Glisson sacrifice fly to left.

Ottawa’s immediate seven-run response featured RBI singles from Purcell and Condon, Larsen’s misplayed sac fly and four costly Bulldogs errors.

“I was pretty happy [with our effort],” Streator coach Louis Ondrey said. “We looked a lot better than we did in our first game [a loss to IVC] and came out swinging the bat well. We hit Maura, and Maura’s a good pitcher.

“But you’ve got to play defense. Whenever a lineup like that gets to see your pitcher a lot more than they should, they’re going to start hitting the ball even harder.

“We just need to get our defense intact. I think it’s coming.”

The Pirates responded to Streator’s single run in the fifth on a Mya Zavada (2 for 3 on the day) RBI double by scoring four in the top of the sixth – a Condon RBI double and Snook’s two-run bomb to center the big blows.

Makenna Ondrey and freshman reliever Caitlyn Talty (1 2/3 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 2 K) took the circle for Streator, but couldn’t work around the Bulldogs’ five fielding errors. Ottawa committed six errors of its own, but hit enough up and down the lineup to overcome it.

“We had, obviously, a rough inning in the third,” Pirates coach Adam Lewis said, “and I just told the girls, ‘We’ve scored a lot of runs the last few games. We’re fine. Just stay in it, control your strikezone.’

“That’s what we did, and we ended up getting back up. We’re fortunate to have a lot of bats. We’re young, we’ll have some growing pains defensively, but we’ll get there.”

Ottawa is scheduled back in action Monday at Beecher.

Streator is scheduled to host crosstown rival Woodland/Flanagan-Cornell on Friday, weather permitting.