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Sports

Softball: Central Powers To Win Over Benet

Naperville Central 10, Benet 2. The Redhawks pound out 11 hits in a non-conference win Thursday.

softball team has been a group that has relied on solid pitching in low-scoring contests in recent years.

If the last couple of days are any indication, this year’s edition of the Redhawks is going to put up some runs.

They followed up a seven-run surge Wednesday with a 10-2 non-conference win over Benet Academy Thursday. Central pounded out 11 hits, including back-to-back home runs from freshman Maddi Doane and senior Alyssa Wunderlich in the second inning.

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The home run was Doane’s first career varsity hit and it was the first home run of the year for Wunderlich.

“We can still play small ball if we have to, but it’s nice to see balls go over the fence, balls go into the gap,” Central coach Andy Nussbaum said. “I think (Maddi will) be a pretty good player for us for a long time. She puts the ball in play all the time and she has a lot of power in that little body.”

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The home runs helped Central (2-1 overall) jump to a 3-1 lead in the third before Benet (9-3) threatened. A sacrifice fly from Allyson Staats scored Maeve McGuire in the bottom of the third to cut the lead to 3-2, but Wunderlich (1-1) got out of the jam and shut Benet down from there.

“I just had to keep focused, think one pitch at a time, not let the runners bother me,” Wunderlich said. “I knew offensively that we’d keep pounding on them. I really liked that we did that.”

In addition to the Redhawks squaring up Staats (8-3), Benet’s defense kept several scoring chances alive. The Redwings committed only five errors all season coming into the game, but committed seven errors Thursday.

“We’ve been playing well,” Benet coach Jerry Schilf said. “We played as bad as we could play and they played very well. They hit the ball better than I expected them to. With the pitching they’ve got, if they hit the ball like that, they’re going to have a very successful season. This was by far the worst game we’ve played in a long, long time.”

Central scored four runs in the fifth to break the game open. The big blow was a two-run double from Doane. The Redhawks added three more in the sixth, with two scoring on a Benet error and another coming around on a Kelsey Gonzalez RBI double.

Both of Benet’s runs were unearned and Wunderlich scattered five hits in the win. She struck out six.

“I thought overall Alyssa was very, very good,” Nussbaum said. “The way I figure it, both runs were unearned and she was pretty sharp.”

Nussbaum thinks Thursday’s effort is something that Redhawks fans can get used to seeing the rest of the spring.

“This year, I think we have a chance to be pretty good,” Nussbaum said. “This is the kind of effort we expect all the time. I thought we were very good today, but we should be very good.”

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