{"id":6061,"date":"2026-03-25T18:47:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=6061"},"modified":"2026-03-25T18:47:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:47:55","slug":"pitching-dominant-cards-sweep-trojans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=6061","title":{"rendered":"Pitching-dominant Cards sweep Trojans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Clear Lake opens North Central League I schedule with 13-0, 12-1 victories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

LOWER LAKE >> Clear Lake High School pitchers AJ Bruch and Sawyer Smith are different barrels of the same shotgun. Both are equally lethal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just ask the Lower Lake Trojans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruch pitched a three-hit shutout in game one, striking out 11, and Sawyer tossed a two-hitter in game two, striking out 12, as the Cardinals opened their North Central League I varsity baseball schedule with a doubleheader sweep of Lower Lake on Tuesday afternoon in Lower Lake, winning the opener 13-0 and the second game 12-1, both in five innings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great having both of those guys,\u201d Clear Lake head coach Brian Horne said. \u201cThey both take pride in the pitching craft. They both want the ball and don\u2019t want to come out of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower Lake\u2019s lone bright spot offensively was a Brody Shields home run off Sawyer in the top of the fourth inning of game two, right after the Trojans\u2019 shortstop recorded all three outs in the field in the bottom of the third (Clear Lake was the home team in game two, Lower Lake the home team in game one).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe makes all three outs in the bottom of the inning, including two great plays, then comes back the next inning and homers (off the roof of the house behind the left-field fence),\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of that one blast, the day belonged to Sawyer and Bruch, who were dominant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith threw only 75 pitches and faced just four batters over the minimum. He gave up hits to Shields and Jordan Rohrbacker (a single), walked one batter while another Lower Lake hitter reached on Clear Lake\u2019s lone error of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Sawyer throws three pitches (fastball, splitter, changeup) that all look the same but do different things. When he does that, he’s unhittable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruch was every bit as dominant in game one, facing even fewer batters (17) and throwing fewer pitches (66) than Sawyer over his five-inning complete game. He also didn\u2019t walk a batter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was in command of the strike zone,\u201d Horne said. \u201cNo walks was the best part of his (pitching) line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd with 11 strikeouts, that means he wasn\u2019t going deep into counts,\u201d Horne said of Bruch\u2019s low pitch count. \u201cThat\u2019s when he\u2019s at his best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake\u2019s offense took care of the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake (2-0 league, 6-5-1 overall) scored in every inning of game one, including a four-run first and a five-run second. Zane McAuley led the way, going 2-for-4 with four RBIs, including a two-run home run to left-center field in the second inning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOff the bat, you knew it was gone,\u201d Horne said. Johnny Gonzales III (1-for-2) doubled and knocked in two runs while Ryken Villanueva (1-for-4) also had two RBIs. Jesse Hayes went 1-for-2 with a double and RBI, Ezekiel Lopez (1-for-2) also had a double and RBI, Smith (1-for-3) had a RBI, and Bruch and Greyson Murray added hits. Colton Mendonca walked to force in a run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In game two, McAuley went 2-for-3 with two RBIs, Hayes went 1-for-1 with a double and two RBIs, Lopez went 1-for-1 with two RBIs, Gonzales III went 1-for-2 with a double and RBI, and Villanueva went 1-for-1 with a double and RBI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe swung the bats well in both games,\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cardinals are off until Tuesday when they host Cloverdale. Until then, they\u2019ll spend some time working on their baserunning after having three runners thrown out on the bases by Lower Lake catcher Ashton Hartmann, who picked off runners at first and third in game one, and gunned down another Clear Lake runner at second base in game two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe got lazy and had a couple of runners backpicked,\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower Lake (0-2, 2-5-1) hosts Branson in a non-league Saturday at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clear Lake opens North Central League I schedule with 13-0, 12-1 victories lake County Sports on Facebook LOWER LAKE >> Clear Lake High School pitchers AJ Bruch and Sawyer Smith are different barrels of the same shotgun. Both are equally lethal. Just ask the Lower Lake Trojans. Bruch pitched a three-hit shutout in game one, […]<\/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\/6061"}],"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=6061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6062,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061\/revisions\/6062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}