This was her time to shine. And Yorkville senior Callie Ferko was up to the task.
Ferko is a utility player extraordinaire who can and will play anywhere on the field.
Put her in, coach. She’s ready to play.
“Last year, I was mostly the designated player, but I played left field one game and first base half the season,” Ferko said of her journey. “I go anywhere. I just listen to what they tell me to do.
“I know I can do my best at any given moment.”
Ferko made the most of her moment Monday, delivering a two-run triple that sent the game into extra innings, where the host Foxes pulled off a 6-5 victory over Kaneland in the 10th.
On a hand-numbingly cold, sunny day, Ferko came through for Yorkville (2-3) in the bottom of the seventh with one out and runners on first and second as Kaneland (0-1) clung to a 3-1 lead.
Ferko drove an offering from senior reliever Ellie Peck off the base of the fence in left field. The Foxes then rallied from two runs down in the 10th, scoring the tying and winning runs on an errant throw on a one-out, bases-loaded infield grounder off the bat of freshman Austyn Strike.
“It was a true team character win,” said Ferko, who primarily plays catcher and third base for her travel team but played right field Monday.
Junior shortstop Alivia Lathen also delivered an RBI single in the 10th for Yorkville, setting the stage for Strike’s swing on a 3-2 count after a bunt single by junior second baseman Lillian Scott.
Yorkville’s heroics spoiled the season opener for Kaneland, which twice appeared to have the game in hand behind Illinois-Chicago recruit Brynn Woods, who started and pitched six innings.
Woods also gave her team the lead in the top of the 10th with an RBI double to right-center off Isabella Rosauer, a sophomore who went the distance for the pitching win.
“When you’re spinning the ball as much as she does and your fingers get cold, you don’t feel it as much,” Yorkville coach Jory Regnier said of Rosauer. “But for most of the game, she was getting the contact we want. She was very much in control.”
Junior outfielder Ansley Ruh added an RBI single to give the Knights a short-lived 5-3 lead. Also going for naught was a 4-for-5, two-RBI day at the plate for junior outfielder Riley Cooper.
Ferko, who’s committed to Spring Arbor in Michigan, came to the plate in her decisive at-bat hoping to make amends.
“I was definitely thinking about that error I made in the fourth inning,” she said. “I had something to give back to my team at that moment and I definitely owed it to the pitcher. I was going up with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I was looking for a pitch to drive.
“I knew this team wasn’t done.”
Not by a long shot, although Woods had frustrated Ferko earlier in the game by working the outside corner. But she did reach on an infield single.
Peck was hitting her spots inside, but Ferko felt a midgame talk with Regnier helped.
“That was a huge, clutch hit,” Regnier said. “Callie was close all day long. It was an adjustment thing.”
Ferko remembered the advice.
“She said I was making hard contact and she had confidence in me,” Ferko said. “Told me to shorten up my swing, get my foot down earlier and shorten my stride.”
It worked like a charm.
“Talk about a kid who’s here for the team, that’s what you’ve got in Callie,” Regnier said. “That’s who she is in her soul. If I told her to figure out how to go out and pitch tomorrow, she’d be like, ‘OK, coach, I’ll do it.’
“She’ll play anywhere. She’s an athlete. And she’s a hitter.”
