× Thanks for reading! Log in to continue. Enjoy more articles by logging in or creating a free account. No credit card required. Log in Sign up {{featured_button_text}}

NORMAL — Sarah Berndt claims not to be superstitious, but her family is.

As they watched the Chicago Cubs play the San Francisco Giants in the National League Division Series, her husband Larry and sons Jack and Jase noticed the Cubs always seemed to score when she was in the kitchen cleaning.

“We really picked up on it during the ninth-inning comeback for Game 4 of that series,” said Sarah Berndt of Normal. “I was in the kitchen cleaning when the Cubs came back and won. So, from that point on, they insisted I stay in the kitchen during the games.”

From that vantage point, she could barely see the television in the living room so, as a compromise, she began holding a sponge and watching from the doorway. It seemed to work in the NLCS as the Cubs won four of six games to advance to the World Series.

“I wasn’t in the kitchen for the second and third games and we know what happened then,” she said, referring to losses to the Los Angeles Dodgers. “So I went back to the kitchen for the rest of the games. We won and I posted on Facebook about it just because I thought it was funny.