Barrington ekes out extra-inning win over Lockport in IHSA Class 4A state softball semifinals

PEORIA — The last team that Lockport played during the softball regular season was Barrington, and the Porters came away with a 3-2 win.

That was the last time that a team had scored against the Porters, as they had shut out all five opponents in the postseason en route to Saturday’s Class 4A state semifinal. Their opponent? Barrington.

For nine innings, the Fillies and Porters battled to a 0-0 tie. Barrington did not advance a runner past first through the first nine innings against Lockport ace Kelcie McGraw, and the Porters did not get a runner past second against Barrington pitcher Katie Tarachewsky.

That changed in the top of the 10th.

With one out, Barrington’s Shannon Kenney reached on a fielding error. Shaylee Hiser followed with a single to center. The ball got past the outfielder and rolled to the fence, allowing Kenney to come all the way around to score and put Hiser on third. McGraw struck out the final two hitters of the inning, but the damage was done.

Tarachewsky retired Lockport in order in the bottom of the 10th for a 1-0 win and the Fillies (35-3-1) advanced to Saturday’s 4:30 championship game against Oswego, which thumped Oak Park-River Forest 13-2 in the other semifinal.

“It’s just such a great feeling that we made it here,” Hiser said. “We have worked so hard all year and it paid off by getting to state. Our school has won a lot of softball trophies, but never a championship. We’re excited to have a chance to bring the big one home.”

Tarachewsky limited Lockport (31-10), which had won 23 of its last 24 games entering Friday’s action, to just seven hits and struck out three.

“Playing against them [Lockport] in the last game of the year helped,” Tarachewsky said. “I kind of got a feel for their hitters and how to attack them. I think my drop curve was my best pitch today.

“We are so pumped to be able to play for the title. It’s all we have been focused on all year. We’ve had that one goal, and we’re almost there. We just have to continue to do what we did today.”

What the Fillies did was make nearly every play in the field. They committed just one error, and that was on the first Lockport batter of the game. The Porters’ RJ Slavicek led off by reaching on error and went to second an out later on a single by McGraw, but Tarachewsky induced a pair of fly outs to escape the jam.

Lockport got a leadoff single by Taylor Lane in the fourth, but she only got as far as second base. With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Liliana Janeczko doubled. An out later, Alexis Vander Tuuk walked, but the inning ended on a lineout to second. It was one of five liners hit by Lockport right at Barrington defenders.

“I saw something about winning being 70% preparation, 29% execution and 1% luck,” Lockport coach Marissa Chovanec said. “We didn’t have that 1% today. We did everything but win.

“It was a great defensive game by both teams until we made a couple errors at the end. You expect that at this level of softball. It comes down to who makes the last mistake, and you can’t expect 16, 17-year-old kids to be perfect.

“I am proud of the way our girls left it all on the field. They fought and battled, but we didn’t win today. Give the credit to Barrington. They came through when they needed to. We still have a chance to win our last game of the season [the third-place game against Oak Park-River Forest at 2 p.m. Saturday], and that’s what we are going to try to do.”

Barrington coach Perry Peterson has won more than 1,000 games in his 34-year coaching career, but never the final game of the season. His teams have taken home two runner-up finishes, four third-places and four fourth-places.

“We got one monkey off our back today,” he said. “We had won state tournament games in Pekin and we had won them at East Side Center, but we had never won one here. We were 0-2 in both 2022 and 2023.

“We knew this would be a tough game. We have all the respect in the world for Lockport. For me, they are one of the gold-standard programs in the state. We worked hard and it was close the last time we played them, but we knew that close doesn’t cut it in the state tournament.”