LAKEPORT — Brittany Rumfelt didn”t pitch a perfect game on Tuesday against the Upper Lake Cougars, but the hard-throwing senior left-hander did help her own cause in the field and at the plate, settling for a no-hitter in Clear Lake”s 9-0 North Central League I South softball win at Lakeport.
Clear Lake improved to 4-0 in the league standings and 20-0 overall, matching the team”s best start ever. The 2000 Cardinals also won their first 20 games before being upset by Kelseyville in the North Coast Section Class A playoffs. Clear Lake has five more games remaining in the regular season — four league and one interlock — before the 2007 sectional playoffs get under way.
While Clear Lake”s 2000 club also won its first 20, head coach Gary Pickle said that team and his current collection of players are quite different.
“That team was starting to feel the pressure (of the winning streak),” Pickle said of his 2000 club. “This team doesn”t seem to notice. They just like to play.”
Rumfelt lost her perfect game with two outs in the top of the sixth inning on a strike-three pitch that bounced away from the catcher for an error. Upper Lake”s only other baserunner also reached on an error in the seventh inning. That runner moved up to second base on a passed ball with one out and that”s when Rumfelt saved her own no-hitter with a defensive gem, snagging a line drive earmarked for center field off the bat of Upper Lake”s Caity Falge.
“It was kind of a self-defense play,” Pickle said of Rumfelt, who not only gloved the liner, but turned and threw to second base to double up runner Jessica Swaney and end the game.
Rumfelt struck out 11 and didn”t walk a batter. At the plate, she went 1-for-3 with three RBIs, including a two-run home run, her Lake County-leading third homer of the season.
Clear Lake scored twice in the bottom of the first against losing pitcher Courtney Gatton and added another run in the second for a 3-0 lead. The Cardinals picked up two more runs in the fourth and then put the game away with a four-run fifth.
Emilee Meyer went 2-for-2 with a RBI and Haley Sanderson went 2-for-3 with a double for the Cardinals, who banged out 11 hits.
Gatton struck out four and walked two.
The Cardinals try for their 21st win in a row Friday at home against St. Helena as the second half of league play opens.
