Baseball: Lake Park breaks loose against Waubonsie Valley
Lake Park obviously didn't bring back 70-degree temperatures from last week's spring break trip to South Carolina.
The Lancers, however, did return with a pretty good baseball team.
A 6-run top of the sixth inning led them to Tuesday's impressive 7-1 victory over Waubonsie Valley in a DuPage Valley Conference opener in Aurora.
Lake Park starting pitcher Connor Cook and Western Michigan-bound counterpart Brandon Petersen dueled through five innings until the Lancers (5-0, 1-0) finally broke it open. The three-game series continues Wednesday in Roselle - weather permitting.
"We're always going to have that big inning," said Cook, who struck out 10 and scattered 4 hits in 6 innings. "It was just a great team win. That big inning fed me even more to go out strong in my final inning on the mound."
Lake Park scored an unearned run in the top of the second only to be answered by the tying run from Waubonsie Valley (5-2, 0-1) when Quinton Zielke scored on a double play.
With Petersen's pitch count rising, he was relieved after surrendering a leadoff single to Joe Kennedy in the sixth. After a strikeout six straight batters reached base for the Lancers.
By the time it ended, Brody Thompson drove in the go-ahead run with a squeeze bunt and Sean Cummins and Dom Fallico added RBI singles. After Cook finished his day by setting the Warriors down in order, Colin Fowich closed it out with a scoreless seventh.
"These are two really good teams," said Lake Park coach Dan Colucci. "When you get an opportunity to break through like we did with the bunt, that kind of relaxed our guys and we were able to take advantage of a couple of things."
Lake Park stranded the bases loaded in the second inning and Waubonsie Valley did the same in the fifth. The fired-up Lancers carried that momentum into the sixth.
A.J. Ackerley went 3-for-4 for Lake Park while Nick Santoro and Matt Oliver had 2 hits for the Warriors. Petersen struck out eight.
"It just didn't happen today," said Warriors coach Bryan Acevedo. "We knew we were facing a good pitcher and runs were going to be hard to come by. You've got to come up with that big hit and we didn't do that."
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