KELSEYVILLE — Relief is what the Kelseyville Knights needed and relief is exactly what they got, courtesy of Mike Duman, during a non-league doubleheader sweep of the Ferndale Wildcats on Saturday at Lloyd Larson Field in Kelseyville.
Duman, a hard-throwing right-hander, picked up a win and a save by coming out of the Kelseyville bullpen as the Knights rallied for a 10-9 win in the opener and then won another thriller 12-10 in game two.
“That”s a good weekend for us,” Kelseyville coach Lou Poloni said. “We won three games in about 24 hours (counting an 11-0 victory over St. Helena on Friday).”
Kelseyville led 7-2 early on in both games against Ferndale only to watch that lead disappear both times. In game one, the Knights trailed 9-8 going to the bottom of the sixth. Ryan Cockerton”s RBI grounder knotted the score at 9 before Dustin Panos” RBI double put Kelseyville ahead to stay.
Duman made sure of that by pitching a 1-2-3 top of the seventh for the save. He retired the first batter he faced on a comebacker, then struck out the next two Wildcats to end it.
While the seventh inning contained no drama, the rest of the game did and the Knights had only themselves to blame after committing nine errors.
“I”ve never coached a team that made nine errors,” Poloni joked. “It”s hard to win with nine errors, but somehow we did.”
Starting pitcher Dustin Thaxton worked the first five innings, allowing eight runs — all unearned — before giving way to Mike DeGregorio, who pitched the sixth inning and received the win in his first mound appearance of the season.
Duman and Blake Panos went 3-for-4 as the Knights banged out 11 hits at the plate. Mike Davis added two hits and Cockerton (1-for-3) had three RBIs.
In game two, the Knights spotted Ferndale a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, then came back with seven runs in the bottom of the inning. But the Wildcats chipped away and eventually pulled even at 10 with a four-run top of the sixth.
Just as in game one, the bottom of the sixth proved to be the turning point as the Knights pushed two runs across the plate, the result of back-to-back bases-loaded walks to Cockerton and Thaxton.
Kelseyville”s winning rally consisted of five walks issued by Ferndale pitching in the sixth.
Duman, the fourth and final Kelseyville pitcher, worked the final 1 1/3 innings, allowing two hits and no runs, striking out two and walking none.
Cockerton went 2-for-2 with two RBIs and DeGregorio homered to right-center field in the bottom of the second inning to give the Knights a 9-4 lead. Peter Wotherspoon also drove in two runs.
The Knights are on the road today at Cloverdale.
