Huntley Softball Falls in Fox Valley Conference Play

With the start of the Fox Valley Conference season, the real heart of the softball season has begun and did for Huntley on Monday afternoon playing at .

Unfortunately for the Red Raiders, the bats didn’t have a great day in a 5-1 loss to the Trojans. Taylor Larson, who took the loss for Huntley (3-7, 0-1), had to wiggle through trouble all game long including right away in the first inning where after an error and a wild pitch, Cary’s Eleni Polites was at third with no outs. Larson was able to get a lineout and a strikeout and had two strikes on Emma Gaulke before Gaulke slammed a two-run homer to give Cary a 2-0 lead. Cary added another run in the second before Huntley scored their lone run of the afternoon on a solo homerun by Kelsey Hagan to cut the Cary lead to 3-1. Cary responded with a run of their own in the third and another in the sixth inning for the winning margin.

The damage would have been worse if Larson, who finished with five strikeouts, wasn’t able to get out of a 2nd & 3rd with no one out situation in the fourth inning where Larson got a groundout, strikeout and popout to escape without giving up any runs. Tara Lycos and Angela Tribuzio had the other hits for Huntley in the loss. Huntley coach Mark Petryniec said that Cary is a difficult team to play against.

“When you play Cary-Grove, they are going to execute correctly and put the ball in play and you have to play defense against them,” Petryniec said. “They’re a solid team and you have to execute what you play them.”

Petryniec added that it was a good team effort considering they were facing Lindsay Efflandt, who struck out seven Huntley hitters.

“Overall I was pleased with our effort especially when you are playing against Lindsay,” Petryniec said. “I liked our bats today but she is one of the best in the area and she showed that.”

Huntley will try to rebound Tuesday with a home game against McHenry at 4:30 p.m.