Junior first baseman Meghan Wirtz represented Richards’ last hope Monday as she walked up to the plate with two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the eighth inning.
She took with her some words of wisdom.
“Meghan is a high-quality player and high-quality person,” Bulldogs coach Julie Folliard said. “She’s an incredibly talented athlete, and she’s had a great season for us.
“My last advice for her was to have a great at-bat, an at-bat that she’s proud of. And she should be proud of that — it was a good at-bat.”
Alas, it was also the final one of the season for the Bulldogs.
Wirtz smashed a pitch to deep center field, but Benet’s Nina Pesare sprinted back and made a great catch to cement a 5-2 victory for the Redwings in the Class 3A Benedictine Supersectional in Lisle.
“I’m pretty proud of that at-bat,” Wirtz said. “I wish I would have hit it farther, got it more up in the air.
“But I honestly think if coach Folliard would have never said that, I don’t know how that at-bat would have gone.”
Wirtz was selling herself a bit short, seeing as how she hit the ball hard all four times up against Benet’s Alex O’Rourke, who pitched a five-hit complete game with six strikeouts and no walks. She retired the last 10 batters.
Hitting third in the order, Wirtz singled to left in the first inning to score Olivia Coglianese and give Richards (20-11) a 2-0 lead. Natalie Hajer led off with a single to center and scored when the Redwings threw away Coglianese’s sacrifice bunt. Coglianese ended up on third base on the play.
Richards did not get another runner past second base, but Wirtz’s last three at-bats were loud outs. She flew out to Illinois-Chicago recruit Pesare with Coglianese on second base in the third inning and lined out to right in the fifth.
So, Folliard was not shocked Wirtz hit the ball hard in the eighth.
“That fact that she hit that ball so well every at-bat is not a surprise,” Folliard said. “She came to play and she performed for the team, and the team did too.
“I could not be more proud of this whole team. We gave it all we had.”
Freshman pitcher Emily Chavosky, who struck out five and walked none, certainly did.
Chavosky matched O’Rourke pitch for pitch by allowing only five hits through seven innings, with the only runs coming on a game-tying, two-run single by Gianna Horejs in the fourth that forced extra innings.
But Benet (24-11) broke through for three runs on five hits in the eighth. It ended an overachieving season for Richards, which had only one senior in designated hitter Kyra Olejniczak.
“We’re a great group of girls,” Wirtz said. “I know I can always count on them. I count them as my sisters. I think if we didn’t keep up our energy and we didn’t have good chemistry, I don’t know if we would have made it this far.
But since we did, I think our season, especially the playoffs, was fantastic. Going into next year, I think we’ll power forward.”
Wirtz figures to play a big role in that.
“I said to Meghan, ‘Gosh, you’re so mature, you’re a big senior now,'” Folliard said. “She said, ‘I feel like a senior.’
“She has a lot of games, has a lot of experience. This is her third year on varsity, so she’s definitely one of our leaders and has just a great head for the game.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
