NCL I varsity baseball race ends in three-way tie as K’ville, Clear Lake, St. Helena finish tied
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ST. HELENA >> Think of the odds you would have gotten for betting Kelseyville to win a share of the North Central League I varsity baseball championship after the Knights started the season 1-9.
“We went 1-8 (preseason) and then lost our first league game to Middletown,” Kelseyville head coach Billy Shaul said only minutes after his Knights defeated St. Helena 7-4 in St. Helena on Friday night, the final league game for both teams, to earn a one-third share of the NCL I championship.
Believe it.
Kelseyville (11-3 league, 12-11) entered the week on life support in the league race. The Knights not only needed to beat league co-leader St. Helena twice, but the league’s other co-leader, Clear Lake (11-3, 15-8-1) needed to lose twice to Fort Bragg.
The Knights delivered on their end, knocking off St. Helena 4-1 on Tuesday in Kelseyville before beating the Saints (11-3, 16-8) again Friday night, fueled by a four-run first inning and a complete-game effort by Brayton Thomas.
Likewise, Fort Bragg (10-4, 16-8) did its part for Kelseyville, defeating Clear Lake 5-1 on Tuesday in Lakeport, and then rallying for four runs in the bottom of the seventh to beat Clear Lake 6-5 on Friday in Fort Bragg. A Clear Lake win would have sealed the undisputed championship for the Cardinals just as a St. Helena win would have done the same for the Saints.
“When we started out 1-9, I wasn’t panicking,” Shaul said of a Kelseyville team dominated by sophomores. “We just had to figure out how to win the close games. No one thought we could contend, but it all just clicked.”
Kelseyville won undisputed league championships in 2023 (14-0), 2024 (14-0) and last season (13-1). Shaul said that while he was fully prepared for the Knights not to run their streak to four straight championships this year given the young nature of his squad, he never discounted the idea.
“I have some very talented players, we’re just young,” Shaul said.
Kelseyville’s rebuild didn’t take long as the team came together rapidly, albeit with a few bumps along the way, including two lopsided losses to Clear Lake.
“We don’t call it rebuilding here,” Shaul said of a Kelseyville program that has baseball championship banners in abundance hanging from its gym rafters. “It’s reloading.”
Kelseyville 7, St. Helena 4
At St. Helena, the Knights jumped on the Saints for runs in the top of the first inning and never looked back, securing another league title with their second victory over the Saints this week. They are likely to play St. Helena again in the coming week as part of a three-team league playoff to determine which of the three tri-champs – Kelseyville, St. Helena and Clear Lake – earn the automatic berth into the upcoming North Coast Section playoffs.
While the league playoff hasn’t been formalized yet, Kelseyville will likely play St. Helena in the first round, the winner advancing to meet Clear Lake. All three teams are headed to the sectional playoffs in any case as are the fourth-place Timberwolves.
“We could all end up in the same division,” Shaul said.
Singles by Deake Lyndall, JD Smart, Case Pivniska and Ryan Keithly fueled Kelseyville’s fast start against St. Helena.
The Knights added single runs in the third and fourth innings to go up 6-0. St. Helena halved that deficit with three runs in the bottom of the fourth. Kelseyville picked up a final run in the sixth.
St. Helena closed to 7-4 in the bottom of the seventh and had the potential tying run at the plate when Thomas recorded the final out. He scattered six hits, allowed only one earned run, struck out three and walked three.
Shaul, who said he was “scoreboard watching” the Clear Lake-Fort Bragg game via his cellphone, said he stopped looking after Clear Lake had gone up 5-2.
“Someone came up to me later and showed me the final score,” Shaul said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Pivniska went 2-for-4 with two RBIs as part of Kelseyville’s 10-hit attack and Smart went 2-for-4. Keithly (1-for-3) also finished with two RBIs. Lyndall, Thomas, Michael Dougherty, Reece Johnson and Elijah Watkins (1-for-3, RBI) also had hits.
Adam Herdell went 2-for-3 for the Saints. Charlie Blaum worked the first four innings and took the loss.
Fort Bragg 6, Clear Lake 5
At Fort Bragg, Clear Lake had a 5-2 lead and was three outs away from an undisputed league championship only to watch the Fort Bragg Timberwolves rally for the win.
“I felt like I got my heart ripped out today,” Clear Lake head coach Brian Horne said of one of the toughest losses of his coaching career.
David Cruz relieved starter Sawyer Smith and recorded the final two outs of the sixth inning. He immediately ran into trouble in the seventh.
“The inning opened with a routine grounder that we muffed,” Horne said of his team’s shaky play on defense against the Timberwolves. “We made three errors that helped run Sawyer’s pitch count up (forcing Horne to go to his bullpen in the sixth).”
The winning run scored on a suicide-squeeze play that was successful but ultimately not needed because Cruz was called for a balk while delivering the pitch to the plate.
“The balk was pretty clear,” Horne said. “He lifted his foot and put it down.”
All signs pointed to a much different outcome for Clear Lake earlier in the game. Jesse Hayes led off the top of the first with an opposite-field home run to right-center field.
“I told him they were going to do what they did the other day to us and start him off with offspeed stuff,” Horne said. “He told me that if they started him off with any of that offspeed (deleted), he was going to hit it out. He did.”
Two innings later Ryken Villanueva crushed a two-run home run to left field, snapping a 1-1 tie. Fort Bragg got one of those runs back in the bottom of the third to make it 3-2, but the Cardinals added two runs in the fourth to go up 5-2.
Smith, who received a no-decision, worked scoreless fourth and fifth innings. He got the first out of the sixth before being forced from the game because of his pitch count. Cruz got the last two outs. Smith allowed five hits and two runs (one earned), struck out eight and walked three.
While Clear Lake still earned a share of its first league title since 2015 with the Kelseyville win over St. Helena, backing into a championship isn’t how the Cardinals wanted to close out the week, according to Horne.
“I hope we figure it out,” Horne said. “We still have games left.”
Hayes (2-for-4) was the only Clear Lake player with more than one hit. Zane McAuley went 1-for-2 with two RBIs. Villanueva, Smith and Grayson Murray had Clear Lake’s other hits.
Clear Lake, Kelseyville and St. Helena will compete in a league playoff tiebreaker next week to determine which of the three tri-champs gets the automatic berth into the sectional playoffs. The others will apply for at-large berths. Clear Lake is likely to host the winner of St. Helena-Kelseyville in that tiebreaker based on a number draw held before the start of every season.
In other NCL I action Friday:
Middletown 13, Lower Lake 3 (6 inn.)
At Middletown, Hayden Xavier hit a two-run home run, his third homer of the season, and the Middletown Mustangs 10-runned the Lower Lake Trojans.
Winning pitcher Cody de Jong went the distance, allowing six hits and three runs (one earned). He struck out four and walked five.
John Finney (1-for-4) also knocked in two runs for the Mustangs while Cody Perez (1-for-3), Blake Costlow (1-for-3) and de Jong (1-for-4) had one RBI apiece.
Lower Lake statistics were not reported.
Middletown (6-7, 10-10) can square its league record and move over .500 for the season with a win at home against Cloverdale at 4 p.m. Lower Lake (1-11, 4-16-1) plays a season-ending doubleheader Wednesday in Cloverdale beginning at 1 p.m.
Cloverdale 11, Upper Lake 1 (5 inn.)
At Cloverdale, the Upper Lake Cougars closed out their year with a loss to the Cloverdale Eagles.
“You always hope it’s better … and we got one more league win than last year,” Upper Lake head coach Don Meri said of the Cougars’ 1-13 league record this season compared to 0-14 a year ago. “That’s a 100-percent improvement,” Meri joked.
Upper Lake starting pitcher Carlos Nevares didn’t record an out before leaving the game with the Cougars trailing 5-0. He had better luck at the plate, going 2-for-2.
Travis McCutcheon (1-for-2) knocked in Upper Lake’s only run. Mikel Compton also had a hit.
The Cougars were 2-18 overall. Cloverdale is 2-9 in league and 6-11 overall.
