By any measure, Antioch’s Brooke White has had a tremendous freshman season, starting for a state title contender, playing a sterling second base and leading the team in hitting.
Perhaps the only thing she hasn’t done with regularity is hit for power. She entered the Class 3A Antioch Sectional championship game on Friday with one home run.
But in her biggest game yet, White homered twice.
“It hasn’t fully set in yet and doesn’t feel fully real,” she said. “I was just really seeing the ball well those two at-bats.
“On the last one, I got the pitch I wanted and just drove it. I knew right away that it felt good right in the middle of the bat, that it was gone.”
It was dramatic too. White’s second homer was a walk-off three-run shot to left-center field in the bottom of the seventh inning that secured the top-seeded Sequoits’ 5-4 win over second-seeded Vernon Hills.
No wonder teammate Kylie Pfleeger, another standout freshman who starts at first base, said during her at-bat right before White’s game-winner, “I’m actually really excited.”
For White and Pfleeger, this is the first sectional title. But Antioch (31-3), which will play Prairie Ridge (22-7) in the Kaneland Supersectional at 4:30 p.m. Monday, has won six straight sectional titles and advanced to two state championship games in three straight trips downstate from 2022 to 2024.
A major reason for such success is a constant pipeline of talent. White, who bats ninth, is one of the most recent examples.
“This might be one of our deepest lineups, and we have a lot of options,” Antioch coach Anthony Rocco said. “Brooke does a really great job setting us up from the nine spot. She’s a future Division I recruit, great defensively. She’ll probably make the move over to shortstop when Claire (Schuyler) graduates.
“As you saw today, she’s a clutch kid with great plate discipline, a real blessing to have who has been doing it all year.”
That’s an understatement about White, who raised her average to a team-high .471. She has become quite comfortable at the bottom of the order after hitting in a couple of other spots earlier in the season.
“I’ve really liked hitting there, turning the lineup over and setting my teammates up,” she said.
That last hallmark of a more traditional ninth batter wasn’t needed against the Cougars (24-9-1). White’s first home run tied the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the third inning.
That deadlock was short-lived. Vernon Hills freshman pitcher Brooke Gossett hit the second of her two home runs, a two-run shot, in the top of the fourth, and her older sister Gia, a junior third baseman, hit a solo homer in the top of the fifth to give the Cougars a 4-2 lead.
But the Sequoits erased that quickly in the seventh. After the first batter, senior designated player Kailyn Bockwoldt, reached on a throwing error, Pfleeger walked to the plate and worked the count to 3-1. Brooke Gossett received a visit, and Pfleeger stepped out of the box. Responding to fans who encouraged her to stay calm, Pfleeger said she was too excited for that. She then hit a single, setting the stage for White.
“I really enjoy the pressure, actually,” Pfleeger said. “Me and Brooke talked in the field the previous inning, and we said, ‘We have to do this for our seniors.’ Brooke said that if I get on, she’d get me in because I hit before her. I got on, and she got me in.”
Not that White planned to hit a walk-off homer.
“I was just thinking to keep it alive and get on base,” she said. “I knew we weren’t going to be done. With this team, I feel like we’re never done. We always have more, and it’s not over until the last out.”
Steve Reaven is a freelance reporter.
