Baseball: Lake Park keeps season going, beats Willowbrook
A 10-month journey might seem endless but make no mistake about it.
Lake Park's baseball team has arrived.
Ryan Behling fired a 3-hitter as the Lancers topped Willowbrook 6-0 in Saturday's Class 4A Bartlett sectional final to claim the program's first sectional championship.
Lake Park (23-14) advances to the Boomers Stadium supersectional to face Buffalo Grove, an 11-10 winner over Libertyville, at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Schaumburg. Ten months after reaching the final eight of the summer state tournament, the Lancers have repeated the feat in the spring.
It wasn't always smooth sailing, but Lake Park is finally playing the kind of ball worthy of the lofty expectations coming into the season.
"We went on a tear, and we've been playing with each other better than I've ever seen in my life," said Behling, who struck out eight, walked none and faced two batters over the minimum in a 97-pitch effort. "I just felt good all day. I woke up and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Come out here and make some history with my team."
After two scoreless innings Lake Park took advantage of its aggressive baserunning and spotty defense by the Warriors (20-15), who committed 7 errors. The Lancers scored in every inning Willowbrook committed an error.
Lake Park scored once in the top of the third before breaking it open with a 4-run fourth. Eric Brown singled home a run, while Anthony DeConcilis and Rory Marino drove in runs with sacrifice flies.
"We haven't played like that in four weeks," Willowbrook coach Vic Wisner said of the errors. "But I also know we've played behind in adversity and we've overcome it. I thought there was going to be that inning where we were going to come back and put pressure on them and find ourselves again. Tip your hat. They didn't give us that opportunity."
Lake Park won for the 10th time in 12 games, a stretch that started with consecutive wins over Neuqua Valley. It's a far different team than the one that lost six straight in late April, and much of the credit goes to the string of mound performances by Behling and Jay Palmer.
"It's a catcher's dream when you've got pitchers throwing like that," said Lancers catcher Zach Aehlert, who reached base three times. "That was by far one of the best games we've played this year. We kept the foot on the gas and didn't let up."
Lake Park added an unearned run in the top of the seventh. And for the sixth time, Behling set down the Warriors in order to end the game.
"I'm so proud of our guys," said Lake Park coach Dan Colucci. "We've stuck to the game plan and they're buying in at the right time. They're really coming together. Really can't wait until Monday to see what we can do."
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