Lake Park 3, South Elgin 1

Two batters into Tuesday's Upstate Eight Conference baseball game at South Elgin, Lake Park coach Dan Colucci was second guessing himself.

The sophomore pitcher Collucci had called up days earlier, right hander Kevin Miller, began the first start of his varsity career by walking the first two hitters he faced.

"After the first couple of batters I was looking at sending him back to the sophomores," Colucci said with a chuckle, "but he settled down nicely and threw strikes."

In fact, Miller struck out the next three South Elgin hitters looking, stranding runners at second and third and setting the tone for Lake Park's 3-1 victory.

"In the first inning I was a little nervous, but I settled down and threw strikes," Miller said. "I took a deep breath, reset and kind of went from there."

Miller retired the side in order in the second but 2 more walks in the third inning, coupled with a Lake Park error, loaded the bases for South Elgin with two outs.

Again Miller escaped unscathed, this time by inducing a comebacker that he deflected and tracked down in time for the third out.

"We had opportunities to break the game wide open twice with bases loaded in one inning and second and third and nobody out in another," South Elgin coach Jim Kating said. "In games like we're playing now, you've got to come through. You've got to put the ball in play and get a run out of both of those situations and that changes the whole complexion of the game.

"We need to make adjustments to what's being called. We took some good pitches that we should have hit the opposite way and we didn't take advantage of that."

South Elgin received a solid performance from its own sophomore right hander, Drew Buddle (1-1), who tossed 6 innings of 3-hit ball with 6 strikeouts and 3 walks.

Lake Park (11-7, 7-5) finally broke through with 3 earned runs against Buddle in the fifth. An infield hit and 2 walks loaded the bases with one out for Mike Ostrowski, who laced a run-scoring single to center field that gave the Lancers a 1-0 lead.

"I didn't feel any pressure," Ostrowski said. "I knew whether or not I did it, one of my teammates would come through for us. I just felt really relaxed and saw the ball."

Lake Park went on to score 2 more runs in the inning on Matt Kennedy's fielder's choice and a sacrifice fly by Mario Fearon.

Miller held South Elgin (7-7, 7-7) hitless until the sixth inning, when he surrendered a run-scoring ground-rule double to Ryan Kellner. But with Kellner later on third base after a wild pitch, Jon Meuser was unable to make contact with an outside pitch on a suicide squeeze bunt and Kellner was tagged out, dousing the rally.

Lake Park senior Brian Serrano pitched a scoreless seventh to earn the save.