St. Charles North's Ciran shuts down Lake Park
A shaky start didn't wobble Amanda Ciran on Wednesday.
It only made her stronger.
The St. Charles North junior surrendered a run before recording an out, then shut down a potent Lake Park lineup the rest of the way for a 4-1 North Stars win in St. Charles.
Ciran (5-0) struck out eight in the 5-hitter.
"It definitely was a tough start," Ciran said, "but you just have to take a step back and pull it all together. We just took it in and went right back at it."
Lake Park (7-3, 3-2 Upstate Eight Conference) was held to fewer than 4 runs for the first time since West Chicago's Mary Connolly beat the Lancers 3-1 in the season's second game.
"I felt like we had a pretty poor approach at the plate," Lake Park coach Tom Mazzie said, "but a good pitcher will cause you to have a poor approach at the plate. If she gets ahead of you in the count, she's deadly. She had everything going for her today."
Kelly Mieszala singled leading off the game for Lake Park and took second on an error. Carly Willert then lined a single to center to score Mieszala.
But North Stars catcher Annie Korth caught Willert stealing, and Ciran retired the next two batters. Korth later picked off Willert in the third and threw out a third basestealer in the fifth.
"Annie is my everything," Ciran said. "We're just on the same wavelength."
While Korth was neutralizing Lake Park's running game, St. Charles North's top of the lineup created havoc on the bases.
Natalie Capone tripled to start the bottom of the first and scored ahead of the throw on a Loren Cihlar squeeze bunt. Cihlar stole second and came around to score on Taylor Russell's sacrifice fly.
In the third inning Capone walked, stole second and scored on Cihlar's two-strike hit to left. Cihlar would take second on the throw in, stole third and came home on another Russell sacrifice fly to make it 4-1.
"It's funny, sometimes when you're playing against a slapping team you feel like sometimes everything they do is the right call," Mazzie said. "As far as their slappers were concerned, everything they did was right today."
Capone and Cihlar had 3 of the North Stars' 4 steals.
"They read the defense," St. Charles North coach April Stary said, "and they take advantage of what the defense is giving them."
Lake Park managed a threat in the seventh, Samantha Becker singling and Vanessa Wegner drawing a walk with nobody out. But Ciran came back to strike out the side, getting the first two swinging on nasty changeups.
"The changeup wasn't working all game," Ciran said, "but it was working at the end. Kind of like who knew - they definitely didn't know it was coming. It worked well."
St. Charles North (10-1, 3-0), a winner over Bartlett on Tuesday, concludes a tough three-game stretch today at Neuqua Valley.
"Then we have three or four in a row next week - it doesn't let up," Stary said. "I'm just hoping this will carry through to tomorrow and then we can relax for a couple days Friday and Saturday."