Lake Park surprises St. Charles East

Lake Park baseball coach Dan Colucci admitted that his team experienced some struggles during the regular season.

The worm has turned so far this postseason.

After allowing St. Charles East to push across 3 seventh-inning runs, including the tying run on a 2-out dropped fly ball, the Lancers (14-21) regrouped and scored the go-ahead run in the ninth on back-to-back doubles from Colin Jameson and Brody Thompson during their eventual 5-4 extra-inning triumph in Wednesday's Class 4A regional semifinal contest at Addison Trail.

"We picked up our left fielder," said Colucci, whose team will face either Conant or Glenbard West in Saturday's regional championship. "He felt terrible so it was nice to come back and persevere."

Jameson led off the ninth with a double on the eighth pitch of his at-bat against Saints reliever Austin Regelbrugge.

"I knew if I did my job, my teammates would pick me up after that," said Jameson.

Thompson did just that, driving in courtesy runner Nick Worcester with a double to right-center on the first pitch to put the Lancers on top for good.

"Coach (Colucci) gave me a chance," said Thompson, who went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and 3 RBI. "He told me, 'since you've hit the ball that way (right field), I'll give you the chance to take it over there.' I just tried to drive it."

Jameson, who also went 3-for-4, followed James Palmer's 2-out single with his first home run of the season over the fence in straightaway center to give the Lancers a 2-0 lead in the second inning.

"It was a great way to start off the game," said Jameson. "The flow of the game was a little slow at first but after that the intensity picked up a lot."

Lake Park extended its lead to 4-0 in the fourth on Thompson's 2-run, 2-out double against Saints starting pitcher Mick Vyzral.

The Lancers' 7-8-9 hitters - Palmer, Jameson and Thompson - finished 8-for-11 with a home run, 3 doubles, 5 RBI and 5 runs scored.

"We're trying to be consistent with our hitting concept," said Colucci. "They're executing it a little better now. We got some good pitches to hit today and we put some nice swings on them."

Junior southpaw A.J. Ackerley, who held the Saints to 5 hits through 6 innings, pitched the first 7 1/3 innings for the Lancers. Colin Fowich retired the final 5 batters he faced to get the win.

"The nice thing about this is we struggled all year and now we're finally starting to play good baseball," said Colucci. "It's a good time to do it.

"It's not the team with the best record - it's the team that plays the best that is going to win games."

St. Charles East got on the board in the fourth as Jake Asquini singled and Regelbrugge doubled before Reid Olson's sacrifice fly.

In the seventh, the Saints (25-10) rallied to force extra innings.

With 1 out, Olson was hit by a pitch before Jake Milosch singled and Jake Clodi walked to load the bases for Corbin Marucco, who drove in a run on a fielder's choice to make it 4-2.

Marucco then stole second and Milosch came across with the third run as the throw wound up in center field, allowing Marucco to take third.

That set up Jimmy Dale's deep fly ball to left, which was misplayed by the Lancers, allowing Marucco to score the tying run.

"It was a great comeback for our guys - we didn't give up," said Saints coach Len Asquini. "But we had our chance there to finish it up and we couldn't get that hit.

"They hit the ball hard and deep and we hadn't seen that. Either they're better hitters than what we thought or we left the ball right where it needed to be and they took advantage of it. It's unfortunate."

Jake Asquini had a pair of hits as the third-seeded Saints faced first-round elimination for the second straight season.

"It hurt for 365 days last year," said coach Len Asquini. "Now we've got to deal with it for another 365 days. That's on us."