{"id":3353,"date":"2025-05-17T16:40:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T16:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=3353"},"modified":"2025-05-17T16:40:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T16:40:22","slug":"cards-beat-trojans-17-1-clinch-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=3353","title":{"rendered":"Cards beat Trojans 17-1, clinch second"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Clear Lake will find out Sunday who it faces in playoff opener next week<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

LAKEPORT >> Improving on last season\u2019s finish in the North Central League I varsity baseball standings, the Clear Lake Cardinals locked up second place with a 17-1 victory over the Lower Lake Trojans on Friday afternoon in the five-inning league finale for both teams at Lakeport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake went 10-6 a year ago and advanced to the North Coast Section Division 5 playoffs, losing to St. Vincent 9-3 in the opening round, but head coach Brian Horne said this year\u2019s club is a much more finished product compared to the 2024 version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hitting the ball, our pitchers are doing their job,\u201d Horne said. \u201cI think we\u2019re more of a competitive team than we were a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Horne, \u201cLast year, our best pitcher, AJ (Bruch), was just a sophomore. Now we have AJ and Sawyer (Smith) and others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Cardinals were happy to reach the postseason a year ago, that\u2019s not the case this time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to make an impact,\u201d Horne said. \u201cI expect a couple of wins. We can go as far as these boys want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake, 16-5 overall compared to 10-10 last year, finishes the season ranked No. 3 in North Coast Section Division 5. The seeding and at-large committee meeting Sunday could leave the Cardinals in Division 5 or move them up to Division 4 or even Division 3 under the competitive playoff format now in use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll stay in Division 5,\u201d Horne said. \u201cHad we won the league, we might have gone up to 4, but we were second, so I think we\u2019ll stay where we\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their league finale against Lower Lake, the Cardinals continued to pound the ball, collecting 13 hits. Jesse Hayes went 3-for-3 with three RBIs and four stolen bases while Smith (2-for-2, two RBIs), Ryken Villanueva (2-for-3, triple, two RBIs) and Zane McAuley (2-for-3, double, RBI) provided some additional pop. Nolan Ewing (1-for-1) also drove in a run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith pitched all five innings for the victory, allowing five hits while striking out eight and walking one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under first-year coach Mike Huffman, Lower Lake went 4-10 in league and 4-14 overall compared to 5-11 and 6-15 a year ago. While the numbers were about the same, Huffman said the team scored a couple of moral victories in that no player was dropped for grades during the season, which means the varsity didn\u2019t have raid the junior varsity team for extra help, an all-to-common occurrence in past seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trojans were playing Clear Lake for the second time in eight days after losing to them 15-0 in five innings a week earlier in Lower Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey smacked the (expletive) out of the ball,\u201d Huffman said of the Cardinals. \u201cThe whole team hits well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake chased Lower Lake starter Blake Hill with a seven-run first inning. Hill lasted just 2\/3 of an inning, allowing all seven runs while striking out two and walking two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hill, Zach Jones, Eric Alonso, AJ Myer and Adrian Negrete all had hits for Lower Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clear Lake will find out Sunday who it faces in playoff opener next week Lake County Sports on Facebook LAKEPORT >> Improving on last season\u2019s finish in the North Central League I varsity baseball standings, the Clear Lake Cardinals locked up second place with a 17-1 victory over the Lower Lake Trojans on Friday afternoon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,16,84,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353"}],"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=3353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3354,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353\/revisions\/3354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}