What a difference a month makes.

Faith Hagerty, Katie Maday and Oswego East can attest to that.

Shut out by Oswego and Yorkville by a combined 17-0 margin in April, the Wolves have returned the favor in successive Wednesdays.

What’s the difference?

“I want to say our energy,” said Hagerty, Oswego East’s sophomore pitcher. “We had a lot more energy this game than last game with them. We came out and we scored first. When you score first it makes a big difference.”

Scoring last is big, too. Maday did it with her two-out, tie-breaking single in the top of the sixth.

Hagerty made it stand, retiring nine of the last 10 batters she faced in Oswego East’s 3-2 win at Yorkville in Wednesday’s Southwest Prairie Conference game.

Oswego East (24-9, 9-7) started the season 7-0, then hit a midseason lull. But the Wolves since the calendar flipped to May have won 11 of 12, with wins over Oswego and Yorkville (24-9, 12-3), top two teams in their conference and sectional.

“I wouldn’t want to play us in the playoffs,” Oswego East coach Sarah Davies said. “No matter how far we go we’ve had a successful season.”

Hagerty, who tag teams in the pitching circle with Addyson Dunn, was tagged for nine hits in a 7-0 loss to Yorkville in April, and hurt by four errors behind her.

But she limited the Foxes to four hits in the rematch, with five strikeouts. Her rise ball coaxed 13 pop ups and flyouts, two pop outs by Iowa recruit Kayla Kersting with runners in scoring position in the fourth and six and a game-ending Foxes’ pop up.

“I just know to throw it off the plate and hope to make them swing,” Hagerty said. “Don’t throw anything down the middle, or close to the middle.”

Hagerty’s defense helped her cause.

Left fielder Maya Bobo made a leaping catch at the fence on a drive by Kersting in the second inning. Second baseman Danielle Stone soared for a liner in the seventh.

“That helped me a lot,” Hagerty said. “They saved the game.”

Bobo walked leading off the sixth in a 2-2 game, and Kylie Mannis singled. After a strikeout and groundout, Maday hit the second pitch she saw from Yorkville’s Ellie Fox for the single to left to bring in the go-ahead run.

“I was just thinking get on any way I can, wanted to make sure to move the runners,” Maday said. “Just stay one pitch at a time and try not to think about it too much. I made sure to start my swing earlier because I was a little late in the previous at-bats.”

Maday had popped out to Fox with two runners on in the fourth, but there is nobody Davies would rather have up than her third-year starter, returning All-Stater and Carroll University commit.

“That’s what she is there, that’s why she’s in that spot, that’s why I trust her,” Davies said. “That’s her spot and she did it.”

Olivia Owles, who had three hits for Oswego East, bunt singled to lead off the game, and scored on Megan Halverson’s single. Another Halverson single drove in Stone to make it 2-0 in the third.

Yorkville’s first two batters in the fourth reached on errors, and Bella Rosauer singled both in to tie it 2-2.

But the Foxes, fresh off the emotional high of their win over Oswego Tuesday, couldn’t muster much more offense against Hagerty.

Rosauer had two hits, Muhlbach a triple and Fox struck out eight for Yorkville, which remained a game up on Oswego and Minooka with one conference game left.

The Foxes are at Joliet Central Thursday.

“We just didn’t get much going,” Yorkville coach Jory Regnier said. “Some of our solid contact they made really good plays on. It wasn’t our day offensively. When you have runners in scoring position you have to be able to execute.”

Davies, meanwhile, liked how her team responded after giving up the lead.

“We have really just emphasized being able to push through when something goes wrong, when something goes our way how are we going to fix it,” Davies said. “They have been playing softball since they were in diapers. They have the skills, it’s the mental adjustments. That’s who they are, they are mentally tough players. Today they showed a lot of grit.”