Brookfield 10U softball reaches finals, loses to LGP

Even though there were no District 9 titles this year for Brookfield Little League softball, the future looks promising. Brookfield’s youngest group, the 10-and-under all-stars, reached the District 9 championship series but lost to LaGrange Park 12-6 Monday at Veterans Park in North Riverside.

Team members are Evangeline Anderson, Annabella Beattie, Ava Burns, Molly Byrne, Charlie Campos, Eliska Chase, Olive Costello, Carina Marin, Victoria Melendez, Jocelynn Patricio, Alina Pytel, Emma Tejack and Sophie Wingernick. Coaches were manager Mike Melendez, Jack Byrne, Destiny Carroll, Kevin Pytel, John Anderson and Alex Campos.

Mike Melendez coached four straight District 9 title teams with a group that rode off as last year’s Majors District 9 champions in the oldest division. This year’s Brookfield Majors all-stars reached the championship series.

“It just wasn’t our year this year. We ran into a really good LaGrange Park team,” Melendez said. “Their pitchers did a great job. At the end, the little plays didn’t go our way. We’re used to things breaking our way and this was one of those years where they didn’t. That’s OK. We’re going to learn from it and we’ll be back. We’ve got a young group coming up that I expect to be very competitive next year in 10U.”

Brookfield 10U, which finished 3-2, needed to beat LaGrange Park twice Monday to win districts after previously losing 3-1 Saturday in the six-team, double-elimination format. Brookfield beat Riverside 10-3, Sunday, to reach the finals after opening by previously beating Western Springs 10-5, Thursday, and North Riverside 16-1 in three innings, July 9.

On Monday, LaGrange Park, batting as the visiting team, and Brookfield each scored four runs in the first inning. LaGrange Park pulled ahead 9-4 in the top of the third. Brookfield held LaGrange Park scoreless the next two innings and scored single runs in the third and fourth innings to close to 9-6, with a runner tagged out at home and another stranded at third and second in the fourth and fifth innings. LaGrange Park added three runs with two outs in the sixth.

“You’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. They made some really nice plays that kept us off the bases and prevented us from having a big inning,” Melendez said. “There’s some balls I thought we hit nicely. They made nice plays.” 

Brookfield had three hits from Marin, Tejack and Campos after one in the first meeting, a run-scoring single by Beattie that brought in Patel in the fifth.

Chase and Campos were powerful pitchers throughout districts. Chase struck out 15 Monday in relief of Campos and nine against Riverside. Campos fanned 11 against LaGrange Park (first meeting) and Western Springs and seven against North Riverside.

Multiple-hit games came from Costello, Anderson, Patel and Melendez (2 RBIs) against Riverside (2-2), Melendez (3 RBIs) and Marin against Western Springs and Costello and Anderson against North Riverside (0-2). Against Western Springs, Brookfield had a seven-run fourth to erase a 5-3 deficit.

“[Our coaches] all were tremendous in terms of working with the girls,” Mike Melendez said. “I was with my traveling team at nationals so they took over and ran all the practices and they got the girls ready. They were instrumental.” 

Baseball

The Brookfield baseball Majors team reached the District 9 single-elimination semifinals but lost to champion LaGrange Park 10-4, Friday, and finished with a 2-2 record. 

Brookfield finished second in its pool by beating Lyons Township 5-3 and Stickney/Forest View 10-0 in four innings while losing to Western Springs 10-4. Riverside (1-2) and North Riverside (0-3) did not advance out of pool play.

In 11U baseball, Riverside reached the single-elimination District 9 semifinals but was edged by second-place LaGrange Park 3-2, Sunday, to finish 1-2. 

Riverside was second in pool play by beating Lyons Township 11-3 and losing to champion Western Springs 10-0 in four innings. Brookfield (0-2) did not advance from pool play.