Lake Forest College Softball  News & Notes 1999 SEASON RECAP.A TALE OF TWO WEEKENDS      The Forester softball team had a front seat for a roller coaster ride through the '99 season.  After struggling through a 2-12 start to the year, including a 2-6 spring break trip to Florida, the Foresters seemed relegated to a year of developing their young, yet talented, team; considering seven of their nine starters were freshmen or sophomores, that didn't seem like a bad step for the program.  But this young team caught fire in April and rattled off nine wins in their next 12 games, including an extended weekend in which they won five of six conference games in four days.  The Foresters stood 5-1 in the league and poised to qualify for the four-team conference tournament for the first time since 1991, when they tied for first place in the North division with two other teams and won the tie-breaker to qualify as the top seed.       After a two-game sweep at the hands of Illinois College on the last weekend of the regular season, the tie-breaking procedures didn't prove as kind to Lake Forest.  Four teams - Lake Forest, Illinois College, Monmouth, and Grinnell - finished the season with a 5-3 record.  IC and Monmouth advanced to the championship tournament, Lake Forest and Grinnell stayed home.       But be assured, the Foresters will be back in the hunt for a playoff berth in the 2000 MWC Championship tournament.  They only graduate Karen Siska, who will be hard to replace, according to Head Coach Diane Kanney, "We'll not only miss Karen's hitting and defense, but her leadership was extremely valuable this season."  Siska was the conference's first player of the week for her performance over the first 15 games of the season, and hit .365 with 11 runs batted in on the season.  She also had a .966 fielding percentage.       Freshman third baseman Kara Ellerby and sophomore Kim Magee, a left fielder, will not only patrol the left side of the Foresters' defense for the next few years, but one of the two led the team in every offensive category.  Ellerby hit .426 with a .500 slugging percentage, and Magee hit .351 with 19 runs scored, 17 runs batted in, five doubles, two homeruns, and 11 stolen bases this season.  Also back will be Cari Poznansky, a junior, who recovered from a shoulder injury which caused her to miss the entire '98 season to register a 3.50 ERA and lost just once (3-1) in conference play.       After a disappointing end to an exciting season, Kanney summed up the year, "It's tough to not go to the tournament when we were in first place all season, and even tied for first place at the end of the season, but if we can learn a few lessons from this year and improve as a unit, we've got the talent to be back in the hunt next year."