Palandi powers Lake Park

Tara Palandri showed up at Lake Park at 5:45 a.m. Tuesday morning for before-school hitting practice.

Consider it time well spent.

Palandri went 5-for-5 and reached base 6 times, keying a 21-hit Lancers attack in Lake Park’s 14-5 win over Waubonsie Valley on Tuesday in Aurora.

Palandri had 2 of Lake Park’s 6 doubles, scored 3 runs and drove in 3 more, including the first run of the game.

“I used to stay after practice, but then coach called me last night and asked me to go in early,” Palandri said. “It looks like I’ll be doing that a lot more.”

Lake Park (8-7, 4-2 Upstate Eight Valley) sent nine batters to the plate in a 4-run first and also batted around in a 5-run third and 4-run fourth.

Stephanie Starr doubled twice and drove in 2 runs, Vanessa Wegner went 2-for-3 with a double, Stephanie Aronson went 2-for-3 with a double, Sarah Koch had 3 singles and Shannon Fritsche, who tripled to lead off the game, had 3 hits and scored twice.

Even winning pitcher Lisa Baumgart, with all of four at-bats this season, got into the act with an opposite-field 2-run homer, her first of the year.

“That was by far the most consistently we’ve hit the ball hard on a line this season,” Lake Park coach Tom Mazzie said. “We were patient, kept our hands back and started shooting gap-to-gap like we’ve been preaching.”

“Hitting is contagious,” Palandri said. “One person gets a hit and everybody else gets excited.”

Waubonsie (5-11, 2-4) got a run in the third, Sarah Gosciniak doubling and scoring on a groundout. Jessica Sarch tripled in 2 runs in a 3-run fifth to prevent a run-rule finish, and Sarch tripled and scored in the seventh.

“We know we’re a young team, and I think it’s starting to dawn on the girls that there are a lot of good teams out there,” Waubonsie coach Aly Kelley said. “We’re scrappy. We’re not going to go down without a fight and we’re going to make teams work for seven innings.”

Baumgart (5-5) threw four strong innings, striking out three. The Lancers senior has allowed 2 runs or fewer in five straight starts.

Lake Park, 2-6 to start the season, moved over .500 for the first time heading into today’s home game with Neuqua Valley.

“If someone’s played a tougher schedule than us, I’d like to see it,” Mazzie said. “We battled through it and the girls have learned from it. It’s exciting to see the girls coming together and all their hard work paying off.”