Softball: St. Charles East blasts Lake Park for regional title
Memorial Day is a time for celebrations and, in many places, fireworks.
The St. Charles East softball team had both on Monday.
Launching 4 home runs into a stiff wind blowing out, the Saints blasted past Lake Park 15-5 to win the championship of the Class 4A Lake Park regional.
Top-seeded St. Charles East (29-7) will now return home to meet No. 4 Elk Grove (26-9) in a sectional semifinal on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. St. Charles North takes on Conant in the Wednesday semifinal with the winners meeting Saturday for the sectional title.
Seniors Delaney Devor and Rylee Stout along with junior Maddie Candre and sophomore Maddy Stout all went deep for the Saints, who ended the game on the slaughter rule when Candre's fifth hit of the day, a single up the middle, scored Maddy Stout with the game-ending run in the bottom of the sixth inning.
"When we see the wind blowing out we want to take advantage of it and we have an awesome hitting team," said Candre, who had a double, 2 singles and a solo homer in her 5 at-bats.
"I usually like to stick to singles and doubles but if it goes over, it goes over."
Devor's 3-run blast to left field in the second inning got the homer parade started for the Saints and gave them a 5-2 lead after No. 8 seed Lake Park (17-17) had taken a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, only to see SCE come back and tie it in the bottom of the inning.
"We were a little nervous at the beginning but we just kept hitting," said Devor. "We relaxed a little bit and our team is always able to work through things."
The Lancers came back to tie the game 5-5 in the third, using 2 errors by the Saints' infield to set things up and then an RBI single from junior Emily Frank and a run-scoring sacrifice fly from senior Kayla Pisauro to score runs.
But after that, Devor settled in and allowed Lake Park just 2 hits the rest of the way. She struck out 5 and walked 1.
And the Saints' hit parade just kept picking up steam as Maddy Stout homered, her eighth of the season, in the third, Candre hit her sixth in the fourth and Rylee Stout hit her 20th of the season in the sixth. SCE had 15 hits for the day and the 4 home runs gives the Saints 56 for the season.
Devor had 3 hits, Maddy Stout had 2 and Hannah Cozzi added 2 with 3 RBI for the Saints.
"It was a good day for us to hit," said SCE coach Jarod Gutesha. "There's only so much you can do with a team that hits like we do. We've been hitting the ball hard all year. We had a few miscues early but there's seven innings of softball to play and the girls did a nice job of taking it one step at a time and not panicking."
Senior Courtney Worcester had 2 hits and an RBI for the Lancers while losing pitcher, sophomore Abby Rodriguez, also drove in a run.
"We knew we'd have to hit with them and that they were a good offensive team," said Lake Park coach James Chellson. "It seemed like every one of their girls were able to hit something into the jet stream. But we fought hard and I'm proud of our effort."