Baseball: Dallmann, Lake Park shut down Buffalo Grove
Lake Park thought it played its best baseball game on Saturday.
The Lancers were wrong.
With another brilliant playoff performance, Lake Park advanced to the state semifinals with Monday's 3-1 victory over Buffalo Grove in the Class 4A Boomers Stadium supersectional in Schaumburg.
Lake Park (24-14) - the eighth seed in the Bartlett sectional - is in the final four for the first time in program history. The Lancers face Huntley, an 8-4 winner over Loyola, at 3 p.m. Friday in Joliet with a berth in the title game hanging in the balance.
"That was magic," said Lake Park first baseman Paul Beverly. "I don't even have any words right now. It's just incredible."
Lancers starting pitcher A.J. Dallmann, who hadn't pitched in two weeks, was masterful on the mound. He threw a 5-hitter, allowing 2 of the hits in the top of the seventh when Riley Rundquist singled home Bison starting pitcher Zach Fricke with Buffalo Grove's lone run.
"You've got to put at-bats together when guys are on base, and we didn't do that," said Buffalo Grove coach Tim Miller. "But they're great kids and they work hard. To make it to the final eight in your class, that's pretty impressive."
Buffalo Grove (30-6), which tied the program record for wins in a season, loaded the bases with one out in the top of the first, but Dallmann got out of the jam unscathed. After that the Bison struggled to get anything going offensively.
"We battled, but obviously we weren't seeing the pitcher very well," said Fricke, who pitched into the fifth inning before being relieved by T.J. Constertina. "We just weren't executing like we usually do."
Lake Park opened the scoring with a run in the bottom of the second inning on an RBI single by John DeConcilis. The Lancers received huge insurance in the fifth when Rory Marino drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and Beverly came through with a two-out RBI single.
"I don't know what it is, but we're just on a roll right now," Dallmann said. "Anything's possible now."
After knocking out two No. 1 sectional seeds, the Lancers know they can accomplish anything this weekend.
"We're making plays, we're pitching, we're getting timely hits," said Lake Park coach Dan Colucci. "We're playing great baseball right now."
Follow Kevin on Twitter