YHS Sports Roundup: Take 2 for Eric Miller, No. 52

Yorkville will try again to retire longtime coach Eric Miller’s number Tuesday at approximately 4:15 p.m. Poor weather caused the April 25 ceremony to be postponed. The Foxes will play DeKalb immediately following the ceremony.

Boys track and field: Foxes stay focused

The Yorkville boys track and field team took fourth place in the seven-team Plainfield Central Invite on Friday. The Foxes won the 4 x 800-meter relay and Matt Anzelc won the shot put with a throw of 47 feet 2 1/2 inches.

During Tuesday’s Senior Night co-ed meet against Sycamore, the Foxes breezed to a 112-18 victory.

“I think our distance team has done really well and our younger relays are coming together. At this point in the season that’s exciting to see,” said Yorkville senior Scott King. “We were conference champs in cross country so we have good distance throughout the team."

Now that the calendar has turned to May, the Foxes are trying to fine-tune some things as they head toward the state series of meets.

“On the sprinting side we’ve improved a lot from last year,” Yorkville senior Zach Cooper said. “We’re just trying to get our times better and get more guys down to state.”

The Foxes still believe they have a shot of knocking off Kaneland for conference supremacy.

“Kaneland is the team we want to beat every year. They’re a great team and we respect them,” Cooper said. “But we have good athletes and have improved so much athletically so I think we have a good shot of taking them this year. It’s one of our goals.”

Girls track: Lady Foxes 8th at Woodstock

The Yorkville girls track and field team placed eighth out of 17 teams during Friday night’s Woodstock Invitational. The 4x 800 relay team of Ali Hester, Casey Kramer, Lindsay Foster and Leena Palmer were victorious (9 minutes 50.05 seconds) and Hester also won on her own, taking the 800 meters with a 2:22.74 effort.

Esther Bell (11:21.84) and Bri Stuepfert (11:35.08) finished third and fourth in the 3,200-meter run.

“I’m really happy with the season so far and very proud of our team,” Yorkville senior Amy Henkel said. “We have a lot of young runners who are doing their best and we also have some seniors who it’s going to be difficult to lose.”

Henkel placed 10th in the long jump on Friday with a leap of 14 feet 1/2 -inch

Last Tuesday the Lady Foxes beat Sycamore, 90-48.

Girls soccer: Lady Foxes overmatched

The Yorkville girls soccer team isn’t winning a lot this spring and there have been some lopsided final scores, but that doesn’t tell the story of how hard the team continues to compete, even when stacked against a difficult schedule combined with less experienced players.

The Lady Foxes dropped to 3-13-1 after losing 9-0 to Sycamore, 6-2 to Kaneland and 8-0 to Oswego. They picked up a 5-1 victory over Rochelle on Friday, thanks to a hat trick from Michelle Fabricino. Jenny Taptich added a goal and an assist in the victory.

Tuesday, Yorkville kept pace with Kaneland through the first half, only to see the Knights score four straight goals to come away with a big victory.

“The first half was excellent,” Yorkville coach Mike Jacobs said.  “Kaneland’s a very good team and I was really pleased with how sharp we looked. Kaneland struggled a bit to get going and we knew they’d get a more offensive-heavy attack and eventually they executed what they needed to do, but it was a nice first-half effort.”

Fabricino said the team has to get past just hanging with teams and go for the jugular.

“I think in the second half it got into our heads that we were playing with a better team and we seem to be fine with that,” she said. “We need to have the goal of winning rather than just playing with them because that’s not enough.”

In the losses to Sycamore and Oswego, Jacobs looked for smaller victories.

“We talk about what we like instead of focusing on the negatives,” he said. “There’s always going to be positives. Oswego, for instance, is very talented, and you find a kid who hung in there against a club kid and you remind the kids about that.”

One thing is for certain, the Lady Foxes continue to play hard from start to finish.

“I hope that when the year is done that they look back at the life lessons they’ve learned from when they were down,” Jacobs said. “They keep running after every ball put on net. I can’t ask for anything more.”

The Lady Foxes will accumulate bus miles this week with trips to Dixon and Sterling.

Boys tennis: Foxes fifth in 24-team invitational

Apparently the Yorkville boys tennis team isn’t going to get fazed one bit when it faces bigger schools. The Foxes traveled all the way to Frankfort on Saturday for a lengthy day in the 24-team Lincoln-Way East Invitational. Yorkville finished n fifth with 23 points. Downers Grove South won the tournament, edging Lincoln-Way East Black, 56-52.

Softball: Big week ahead for Yorkville

Beginning with Monday’s non-conference game against Plainfield North, the Yorkville softball team will be busy on the diamond this week if Mother Nature doesn’t intervene.

The Lady Foxes face conference foes Sycamore, Morris and Kaneland.

“They definitely want to have a winning season and they, obviously, know we’re not going to be perfect,” Yorkville coach Kathi Dockstader said. “They’ve played some tough competition and I’ve very satisfied with our record right now.”

Yorkville is 10-8 overall, 3-2 in the Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference.

The Lady Foxes went 1-2 last week. They lost to LaSalle-Peru, 5-3, on Tuesday but bounced back to thump Rochelle on Thursday, 14-8. Devin Turner went 4-for-4 in the win with a double, two home runs and four RBIs while Lauren Rhodes smacked a pair of doubles and drove in two runs.

“We hit the ball a ton,” Dockstader said. “We had some pitching trouble and some mental errors that kept it closer than it could’ve been.”

Taking advantage of strong winds blowing in on Saturday, Rhodes shut down Oswego, striking out eight batters and surrendering just a pair of hits in a 3-1 victory. Kaity Anderson added a single and a double for the Lady Foxes.

“She pitched a very good game,” Dockstader said. “They didn’t score until the seventh inning and that was on an error."

Baseball: Foxes deal Kaneland first conference loss

It was a rough week for the Yorkville baseball team as it lost a series to Kaneland in Northern Illinois Big 12 play and then was battered around by Plainfield South, 12-1, in Saturday’s non-conference contest.

Kaneland’s Bobby Thorson fanned 11 Foxes and yielded just two hits in a 2-0 victory on Tuesday. Thorson also slugged a home run in outdueling Stephen Toma.

Wednesday’s game was postponed due to rainy weather, but the teams got Thursday’s game in at Elfstrom Stadium in Geneva.

Things didn’t go well from the start for the Foxes as the Knights sent 11 batters to the plate in the first inning and scored six times against Alex King. On the positive side, Luke Lucchetti hammered a grand slam down the right-field line. Kaneland held on for a 10-6 victory.

The Foxes finally handed the Knights their first conference loss in nine games with an 8-5 win Friday. Derek Pisczek kept the Knights scoreless through five innings.

“Coach called a good game,” Pisczek said. “I was able to locate and mix speeds and throw all my pitches for strikes. My defense played great. I didn’t strike anyone out so I needed that.”

The Knights made things interesting with a late rally but thanks to a triple and three RBIs from Josh Cooper and a pair of RBIs from Ryan May, the Foxes were held on.

“Game one was very competitive and we thought we could’ve won that one so to come back after struggling in the first two was big for us,” Yorkville coach Scott Luken said. “We’re trying to get back in the race. After we got off the bus I told the guys that if we could win today and take the next couple series, who knows what happens.”

The Foxes open a three-game set with DeKalb starting Monday night on the road.

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