Lockport's Aggressive Play Too Much for Knights

On a day where the Lincoln-Way Central softball team expected to have a difficult time scoring runs, the Knights simply couldn't give Lockport extra outs or allow its baserunners to move from station-to-station.

But the Porters took advantage of an error, a misplayed a rundown and another situation where the Knights may have been able to get a baserunner out on a comebacker all in the first inning to take a 2-0 lead.

And Lockport went on to notch a 5-0 victory on Monday afternoon, stiffling Central's offense in its final regular-season home game.

"I think we gave them those first two runs," Lincoln-Way Central coach Stephen Paulsen said. "We had a bad throw on the rundown, and I thought we could've had a runner on the comebacker, but give them credit for putting the pressure on us by getting on base."

Getting runners on base was something the Knights struggled to do all afternoon. A lot of it had to do with Lockport junior southpaw Taylor Weissenhoffer, who made a statement in the early going, fanning Gabby Boerema and Kylie Bennett back-to-back to end the first inning.

Weissenhoffer tossed a one-hit shutout, striking out eight while walking three. She only allowed four balls to leave the infield.

"Their pitcher got ahead and made us defensive hitters," Paulsen said. "We didn't do a good job."

A perfect example of Lockport's ability to manufacture runs came in the top of the fourth inning. Tierney Bottino singled, made a hard turn past the base and moved into second base when the ball was misplayed in left field. She moved up to third base on a wild pitch and later scored on another wild pitch.

"We know aggressive base running is going to put some pressure on the defense and that's something we need to do," Lockport coach Marissa Chovanec said. "The girls know they can try to take an extra base, whether it's a slow relay or a ball in the dirt. They're always prepared to stretch it."

Lockport also put on a bit of a power display where it showed that a couple swings of the bat was all that was needed to score.

In the fourth inning, Allison Foley clubbed a home run to center field. In the sixth inning, Jessica Kubinsky hammered a pinch-hit round-tripper.

"We knew with the wind blowing in that we had to keep them off the bases," Paulsen said. "They were on base a lot of the game, and we struggled putting together good at bats."