Lake Park scores 3 in 7th to beat Metea Valley
Lake Park softball coach Tom Mazzie probably didn’t know whether to make his kids keep running or congratulate them on a comeback.
Either way, the 6:45 a.m. bus for Ohio got a little more enjoyable.
Mazzie’s Lancers, mystified for five innings by soft-tossing Metea Valley pitcher Jenna Hall, scratched across 3 runs in the bottom of the seventh for a 6-5 win on Wednesday in Roselle.
All five of Lake Park’s hitters in the seventh reached base, but only Stephanie Aronson’s game-winning single got out of the infield.
“It’s kind of the way this team’s done it this year,” Mazzie said. “They don’t give up. They know they have 21 outs. Sometimes we use them all. It doesn’t always work out, but tonight it did.”
Kelly O’Neill started the Lancers seventh, beating out an infield hit up the middle. Tara Palandri followed with a comebacker, but the throw to second for the force was wide, and the runners moved up to second and third. Stephanie Starr dropped down a bunt, and when she beat out the throw Palandri aggressively followed O’Neill home with the tying run.
“The most impressive thing we did all day was our aggressiveness on the bases,” Mazzie said. “They helped us out a little bit, but it happens.”
Starr took second on the wild pitch, and Shannon Fritsche’s pop-up in short left field was dropped. That brought up Aronson, who lined Stephanie Bova’s first offering into center for the game-winner.
“That inning was scary at first,” Aronson said, “but I had confidence in the girls to get on base and confidence to hit them in. Once one person starts hitting, we all seem to get it together and pick each other up.”
Metea coach Kris Kalivas was, to say the least, exasperated with her team’s seventh-inning meltdown. Hall’s 4 innings of two-hit, two-run ball went for naught.
“It’s been our story all year long. The other team puts some pressure on us, and instead of rising up we fold,” Kris Kalivas said. “I can’t figure it out. I don’t have the answer.”
Mazzie was just as puzzled by his team’s execution at the plate for six innings. A day after run-ruling Batavia 11-1, the Lancers (9-7, 6-1 Upstate Eight Valley) managed just 4 hits through six innings. Most of the outs were out-in-front weakly hit grounders, six of them to Metea third baseman Kim Baker.
“We need to be more patient at the plate,” Aronson said, “wait on those pitches.”
Metea (7-6, 4-4) jumped out early. The Mustangs scored twice in the second on a two-run double to center by Antoinette Senese, and Alexa Caputo’s rocket infield hit in the third scored Baker to make it 3-0. Logan Cahill doubled and scored on an error in the bottom half for Lake Park, but Metea came right back in the fourth, Anna Petersen singling in Lori Obendorf.
Palandri singled in O’Neill in the fifth, but Metea got a run back in the sixth on four Lake Park errors.
Lake Park, which heads to the Wendy’s Classic this weekend, remained a game behind Bartlett and tied with Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley with its sixth win in seven games in what promises to be a wide-open Valley race.
“Our girls have a good idea that our conference is brutal,” Mazzie said. “Anytime you can get a win, you need to take advantage and get one.”