Lancers get last word
The last time Lake Park scored Wednesday, the Lancers did it when St. Charles North couldn't mount another comeback.
Kaitlyn Tunzi scored in the bottom of the seventh inning on the third North Stars error of the game to give host Lake Park a 4-3 Upstate Eight Conference victory in Roselle.
"With the amount of errors and baserunning mistakes we made, I don't see this as a close game," North Stars coach April Stary said. "It was close only by the story, not by the performance my kids put in. They played 10 times better (Tuesday, a 6-1 victory against Bartlett) and had a better performance.
"I think there were 3 errors in one inning. That's ridiculous. So while I'm happy they kept themselves in the game, I'm ridiculously disappointed with their performance today. There's no reason why we should have lost this game."
Despite the win Lake Park coach Tom Mazzie saw room for improvement from his team also.
"It's a nice win despite probably a less than a perfect game," he said. "All I told the girls tonight was I want nine girls who will compete. And to compete means you don't strike out looking. You don't take strikes when you've got runners on third base with less than two outs. Things like that."
Lake Park took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Vicki Tomaka drove in Carly Willert. St. Charles North tied the game in its next at-bat, courtesy runner Shelly Crerar scoring on a Lake Park error.
The 15th-ranked Lancers (5-2, 2-1) took the lead again in the third. Kelly Mieszala led off with a single and scored on Willert's double to right center. Two outs later Samantha Becker drove in Willert for a 3-1 Lancers lead.
That lead lasted barely long enough for the Lancers to enjoy it. St. Charles North pitcher Amanda Ciran led off with a single to center field, and courtesy runner Crerar went to third on an error. She scored on Emily Watts' single. Two batters later Watts tied the game again when she scored from third on a Loren Cihlar single to left off winning pitcher Angie Bates (4-2).
"Bates has had arm issues. She hasn't thrown in five days, so the rust is obvious," Mazzie said. "But she competed at the end. The last couple of innings when we needed her to step up, she stepped up and got some big outs in some tough situations."
The game was still 3-3 when the Lancers grabbed their bats in the seventh inning. Tunzi worked the count full before drawing just the second walk of the game off Ciran. She reached second base on Mieszala's bunt.
One batter later, the North Stars shortstop couldn't handle catcher Alexis Munaco's hot smash, which bounced into left field allowing Tunzi to score the game-ending run.
Ciran, a sophomore, was the hard-luck losing pitcher for the North Stars.
"She did her job today in terms of getting them to hit to our players," Stary said. "Our players just weren't fielding. And when you've got errors like that against a team like Lake Park, you're not going to win."