MIDDLETOWN — How good a pitcher is Middletown”s Kris Cole? Pretty darn good.
Cole improved to 10-2 on the season, working a grand total of 5 1/3 innings in three separate stints, as the Middletown Mustangs beat St. Vincent High School of Petaluma 11-7 in the opening round of the North Coast Section Class A baseball playoffs on Tuesday at Wes Martin Field.
Cole worked the first four innings and left the game with an 11-1 lead, then came back to pitch two more times as his bullpen struggled to silence the North Central League I South champions.
“They can swing the bat, so I wasn”t surprised,” Middletown coach Mike Robertson said of the six runs St. Vincent (15-4) scored late in the game.
Cole retired the final batter during St. Vincent”s two-run fifth in his first relief stint. He then left the mound to play third base but was called on again in the seventh, when he struck out the side. Overall he pitched 5 1/3 innings, allowed just one hit and one run, struck out nine and walked one.
After Cole spotted St. Vincent a run in the top of the first, the Mustangs (18-4) scored 11 unanswered runs ? two in the bottom of the first, four in the third and five in the fourth.
Cole led off the third with a walk and Jackie Crachiola crushed a home run to left field to make it a 4-1 game. Grant Young and Josh Gipson followed with back-to-back blasts to center field to extend the Mustangs” lead to 6-1.
And the rout was on.
“Scoring all those runs early left me with a bunch of choices,” Robertson said of the pitching situation. “Some of those choices didn”t work.”
Crachiola had three of the Mustangs” nine hits and Young and Gipson each had two hits and two RBIs on the day.
Cole retired 11 straight batters during his first stint on the mound and was pretty much untouchable, according to Robertson.
“I don”t know if he was throwing his hardest, but he pretty much handed them their lunch,” Robertson said.
It was Middletown”s second win against St. Vincent this season. The Mustangs also won 3-1 earlier this season in NCL I interlock action at Middletown.
Middletown advances to the semifinals on Friday and will host No. 1 seed Justin-Siena of Napa, the defending Class A champion, at 4 p.m. The Mustangs, the No. 4 seed, are hosting the game because they are a league champion (out of the NCL I North).
Justin-Siena scored a run in the bottom of the seventh to avoid an upset at the hands of No. 8 seed Marin Academy in another first-round game on Tuesday.
Two other first-round games take place today when No. 6 Kelseyville plays No. 3 John Swett and No. 2 Head-Royce takes on No. 7 Salesian.
