Ahlivia East ran the gamut of respect levels as a hitter Monday.

Barrington chose to put teammate Jaelynn Anthony on in the first inning, electing to pitch to East instead. By East’s fourth plate appearance, she was the one drawing the intentional walk.

“It happened to me before in the Yorkville game. It’s kind of a little slap in the face,” said East, Oswego’s senior first baseman. “Jae is a good hitter, but I’m a pretty good hitter, too. Put some respect on my name.”

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Oswego's Jaelynn Anthony celebrates Monday, June 1, 2026, as the last out is made in their Class 4A supersectional win over Barrington at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. (Mark Busch)

There’s no disrespecting East the way she was hitting Monday.

She doubled in two runs in the first inning and doubled in two more in the fourth. East’s heroics highlighted a 14-hit Oswego hit attack, and the Panthers held on to beat previously undefeated Barrington 7-5 to take the rematch of last year’s state championship game at the Class 4A NIU Supersectional.

Defending champion Oswego (23-11), returning to state for the third straight year, will face Mundelein in a Class 4A semifinal at 4:45 p.m. Friday in Peoria.

Adalynn Fugitt had four hits and scored two runs, and Betsy Jack, Anthony and Payton Hatzinger each had two hits for Oswego, which started the season 0-4 but is back at state after graduating 10 seniors.

“It’s crazy. It doesn’t happen very much,” Anthony said. “We want to make the most of it.”

East, as much as any Oswego girl, is eager to make the most of it.

She tore her ACL during basketball season in February of 2025 and missed all of softball season. East chose to be the team manager and was at every game, and at state. She was finally cleared to play fall travel ball.

“I was definitely a little rusty,” East said, “but I got a hit my first at-bat.”

East has hit fifth throughout the season, behind Anthony, but it’s been a quiet playoff run up until Monday. East was 1 for 12 with a walk through four games, and came into Monday hitting .253 on the season.

With a run in on Jack’s groundout to score Fugitt, East came up with two runners on in the first against Barrington ace Katie Taraschewsky after Anthony was intentionally walked.

She drilled a double into the right-center field gap to bring in two, and Kennedy Gengler followed with an RBI single to make it 4-0.

“Haven’t been hitting that well recently, so when I came into this game we all talked about having a plan, we knew this pitcher was going outside with her pitches,” East said. “I went up there and told myself to split the plate, focus on the outside pitch and hunt it.”

East did it again in the fourth.

With Fugitt and Jack on base with singles, Taraschewsky retired Anthony on a liner for the second out. But East peppered the gap in right-center again, driving in two to push Oswego’s lead back to four, 7-3.

“I kind of feel like she is the one that we have been waiting to do that,” Oswego coach Annie Scaramuzzi said. “We see her hit every single day, and she hasn’t moved in the lineup because we know what she’s capable of.

“For her to come out and do that, swinging the way she did, super proud of her. She’s kind of been a missing piece.”

Oswego managed a combined four runs in its two sectional wins, but was all over Taraschewski (32-1), who became Barrington’s all-time winningest pitcher with her 91st, a 2-0 sectional final win over Huntley.

Anthony’s RBI single in the second made it 5-0.

“We did our research, we saw her in the state finals last year,” Scaramuzzi said. “We did a great job with the outside pitch. The last three teams we have struggled with outside and up. The first inning, to set the tone, was huge. We knew they wouldn’t lay down.”

Indeed, Barrington (36-1) came back with three runs in the third before East’s second two-run double in the fourth.

“We came in knowing that they were trying to beat us. We took the title from them last year,” East said. “We wanted to score first, take the momentum.”

East, who was born in Tennessee, moved to Michigan and came to Oswego around her 10th birthday, has played varsity basketball since she was a freshman.

Softball-wise, she was originally a catcher, played third base a few games this season, but settled in at first about five games in, filling the shoes of Rikka Ludvigson.

She was busy Monday. East caught a rocket that went off her mask and hit a chin, one of 11 Barrington ground-ball outs. In the seventh, with Barrington’s leadoff runner on, East stayed down to spear a wicked one-hopper off the bat of Harlow Engel, who had hits her first three at-bats.

“Had some piss rockets right at me,” East said. “Jaelynn said stay down, stay down. I told myself to just stay in front of the ball. [Engel] is a great hitter. Coach Annie called it inside, just had to stay strong, stay in front of it.”

Anthony, who gave up her first earned run since the second inning of the regional semifinal and was touched for 10 hits while striking out just three, stayed strong.

With the tying runs on in the seventh, she got a called-third strike and ground out to Fugitt to end it.

“Just had to stay calm,” Anthony said, “remember what I can do.”