{"id":6167,"date":"2026-03-31T18:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=6167"},"modified":"2026-03-31T18:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:24:17","slug":"clear-lake-bats-answer-in-10-6-win-over-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=6167","title":{"rendered":"Clear Lake bats answer in 10-6 win over Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shaky defense not enough to derail Cards in North Central League I varsity baseball action<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

LAKEPORT >> The Cloverdale Eagles made the most of Clear Lake\u2019s five errors to keep it close, but the Cardinals\u2019 bats had the last word in a 10-6 North Central League I varsity baseball win Monday afternoon in Lakeport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank God we can hit because we couldn\u2019t play catch today,\u201d Clear Lake head coach Brian Horne said of his team\u2019s defensive miscues on what were otherwise routine plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe overran a flyball in the first inning and let two runs score,\u201d Horne said of Cloverdale\u2019s three-run top of the first inning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake (3-0 league, 7-5-1 overall) counted with three runs in the bottom half but should have had more, according to Horne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could have had seven or eight runs,\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloverdale finally snapped the 3-all tie with a run in the top of the fourth, but Zane McAuley\u2019s two-run ground-rule double in the bottom half put Clear Lake ahead to stay at 5-4. The Cardinals added three more runs in the fifth, two scoring on a David Cruz double to the left-center field gap, to go up 8-4, and the Cardinals made it 10-4 with a two-run sixth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Eagles (0-3, 4-5) scored their final two runs in the top of the seventh against reliever Cruz, who came on in the sixth to replace starter Sawyer Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith worked 5 2\/3 innings, allowing four runs (two earned) with 12 strikeouts and four walks. He hit the 110-pitch limit in the sixth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three of the Cardinals\u2019 errors came in the first inning as the team just never settled in defensively, according to Horne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those games you hate as a coach,\u201d Horne said. \u201cThere was low energy in the dugout. It was weird.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it got even weirder later in the game when Horne had to break up a scuffle between two of his own players in the dugout, neither of them starters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSawyer was doing his job, we just didn\u2019t give him much help (on defense),\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AJ Bruch went 3-for-4 with two RBIs to spark Clear Lake at the plate along with McAuley (2-for-4), who drove in three runs. Smith (2-for-4) also drove in two runs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same two teams play Friday in Cloverdale at 4 p.m. Clear Lake takes on St. Helena twice early next week, with the Cardinals hosting the Saints on Monday and traveling to St. Helena on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shaky defense not enough to derail Cards in North Central League I varsity baseball action Lake County Sports on Facebook LAKEPORT >> The Cloverdale Eagles made the most of Clear Lake\u2019s five errors to keep it close, but the Cardinals\u2019 bats had the last word in a 10-6 North Central League I varsity baseball win […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,16,20,84],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167"}],"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=6167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6168,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions\/6168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}