{"id":3007,"date":"2025-04-16T15:32:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T15:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=3007"},"modified":"2025-04-16T15:32:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T15:32:47","slug":"mustangs-top-cougars-10-5-in-league-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=3007","title":{"rendered":"Mustangs top Cougars 10-5 in league action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Middletown varsity baseball snaps 1-1 with six-run bottom of the third<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake County Sports on Facebook<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MIDDLETOWN >> Not even two double plays initiated by Upper Lake High School\u2019s Carlos Navares could stop the Middletown Mustangs from posting a 10-5 victory over the Cougars in North Central League I varsity baseball action Tuesday afternoon at Wes Martin Field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown (2-3 league, 4-8-1 overall) scored six times in the bottom of the third inning, pounding out five of its 11 hits in the inning, to break a 1-1 tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey worked for it,\u201d Upper Lake head coach Don Meri said of Middletown\u2019s six-run third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown staked winning pitcher Cody de Jong to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Upper Lake (0-6, 3-9) briefly tied the game with a run in the top of the third, but the Mustangs pushed ahead to stay in the bottom half. Middletown had a 9-1 lead before the Cougars began to close the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe battled them,\u201d Meri said. \u201cWe just had that one bad inning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mustangs had at least one hit from eight of its nine starters. De Jong helped himself by going 2-for-4 with two RBIs while Hunter Karp and Blake Costlow each went 2-for-4. Kelby Shook (1-for-2) also knocked in two runs. Other hits went to John Finney (1-for-4, double, RBI), Madden Sutton (1-for-3), Hayden Xavier (1-for-2) and Cody Perez (1-for-4, RBI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Jong worked the first five innings for the victory, allowing six hits and two earned runs with three strikeouts and four walks. Xavier finished up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Upper Lake, Jimmy Sanchez went 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs, Landen Robinson went 2-for-4, and Jace Kelley went 1-for-3 with a RBI. Tyler Collins, Mikel Compton and losing pitcher George Rahmer also had hits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahmer pitched the first four innings for the Cougars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navares opened the game in center field where he started an 8-6 (center to shortstop) double play early in the game following a shoestring catch. After moving to pitcher later in the game, he initiated a 1-3 (pitcher to first) double play after coming off the mound to grab a soft liner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t so much that he caught the ball, but how quickly he was able to get rid of it and double off the runner that was impressive,\u201d Meri said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had two really good plays by our outfielders,\u201d Meri added. \u201cCarlos made the first (starting the double play) and Jerod Rosales (in left field) had another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown remains home Friday to take on Clear Lake at 4 p.m. Upper Lake returns home to host St. Helena at 4 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Middletown varsity baseball snaps 1-1 with six-run bottom of the third Lake County Sports on Facebook MIDDLETOWN >> Not even two double plays initiated by Upper Lake High School\u2019s Carlos Navares could stop the Middletown Mustangs from posting a 10-5 victory over the Cougars in North Central League I varsity baseball action Tuesday afternoon at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,84,19,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3008,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007\/revisions\/3008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}