Loy helps Lake Park regroup, hands Conant 1st loss

"Momentum is the next day's starting pitcher" goes the old baseball axiom.

Good for Lake Park, that meant Kelly Loy.

A morning after a seventh-inning meltdown at Bartlett, the Lancers senior 3-hit previously undefeated Conant 6-3 on Saturday in Roselle.

"You gotta regroup from a loss like that," Lake Park coach Tom Mazzie said. "I have 100 percent faith in Kelly Loy and Angie Bates. This off-season they pushed each other, and it's showing. Kelly got hit a little bit early today, but she was able to work and get the ball down and pitch like I know she can."

Loy (1-0) allowed just one baserunner, a two-out walk in the fourth, after surrendering all 3 of Conant's runs in the third. She struck out six - punching out the side in the seventh.

"My screwball and curve were working - I just kept them low," Loy said. "At the end I threw some changeups to keep them off balance."

Conant (8-1) grabbed a 3-2 lead in the top of the third on run-scoring doubles by Allie Bauch and Miranda Cavin, and a Lake Park throwing error.

But Lake Park came right back with 2 runs in the bottom half, Carly Willert tripling and scoring on a Conant throwing error. Vanessa Wegner's squeeze bunt scored Samantha Becker with the go-ahead run.

"I have faith in my offense that they will put the ball in play and get those runs back," Loy said. "We just have to keep playing defense like we know we can. Everyone was there supporting me when I made that bad throw."

Conant went quietly against Loy the rest of the way.

"Things were off for us today, and unfortunately we didn't overcome that," Conant coach CathyAnn Smith said. "Their pitcher hit her spots and we just seemed a half a second slow defense and offense. We knew there'd be a loss some where."

Lake Park (5-2) used its little ball to tack on runs in the fourth and fifth. In the fourth Kelly Mieszala doubled and Willert singled. Willert started on a steal to second and in Conant's hesitation to run her down Mieszala bolted home to make it 5-3.

In the fifth Wegner doubled, and scored on a wild throw on a Sarah Koch bunt.

"When they threw the short game at us we were slow," Smith said. "That's something that can't happen. The girls owned it, they knew it and they want to learn from this."

Mieszala went 3-for-4 with 2 doubles and 2 runs scored for Lake Park, which is scoring just a tick more than 6 runs per game.

"If Mieszala keeps hitting like she is it's tough for us not to score 5 or 6 runs," Mazzie said, "It's hard not to with the firepower that comes up behind her."