FORESTVILLE — Baseball doesn”t always reward the team that hits the ball the hardest. If that were true, the Kelseyville Knights might be on their way to Marin County instead of done for the season.
“We hit the crap out of the ball,” Kelseyville coach Lou Poloni said of a frustrating 4-2 loss to the El Molino Lions on Wednesday in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division IV playoffs at El Molino High School in Forestville.
Even with staff ace Mike Duman on the mound, the Knights (16-10) couldn”t catch much of a break ? not on offense and not on defense. All four of the Lions” runs scored after two were out — three in the bottom of the second and one in the bottom of the sixth.
The three-run second was especially frustrating, according to Poloni, because the Knights were on the brink of getting out of the inning unscored upon when the Lions” No. 9 hitter produced the hit of the game.
“Mike absolutely sawed the guy off,” Poloni said.
The batter dunked the ball in between the mound and second base, and with second baseman Max Huff playing back on the play, the El Molino player was able to leg out an infield single to score the first run of the inning. A run-scoring throwing error on a pickoff play and a RBI double pushed the Lions” lead to 3-0.
Kelseyville closed to 3-1 in the top of the third on Mike Davis” RBI groundout. It remained 3-1 until the Lions scored in the bottom of the sixth. Duman struck out a batter for what should have been the third out, but the ball bounced away from catcher Matt Jones, whose throwing error to first allowed a run to score.
That run turned out to be significant in the top of the seventh. Jones led off with a double and Justin Lilly just missed a home run, flying out to the warning track. Ryan Cockerton”s single put runners at the corners for Mike DeGregorio, who hit a long fly ball to the foul pole in right field, Jones tagging up and scoring on the play.
“Both of the balls were hit hard,” Poloni said of Lilly”s and DeGregorio”s deep flyouts. “That (Lilly”s ball) definitely had a shot of getting out.”
Huff”s hard grounder to third base ended the game and the Knights” successful season, one that included a co-championship in the North Central League I North.
“We had a winning record, a good (team) GPA, we won the league title and a playoff berth,” Poloni said. “Those were some of the goals we talked about before the season. It was a great group of kids and they did reach those goals, but that might be tough to swallow tonight and tomorrow night.”
Duman went the distance for Kelseyville, striking out four and walking one in six innings. Cole Parmeter also went the distance for El Molino, striking out eight and walking two.
“Duman threw well enough to win,” Poloni said.
Despite several well-struck balls, the Knights finished with just three hits, including a double by Huff that set up Kelseyville”s first run in the third.
“Jones hit two of the hardest balls to center field you”ll ever see and didn”t get anything,” Poloni said. “Lilly and Jones hit the ball hard every time they were up.”
El Molino (13-11) the fifth-place team out of the Sonoma County League, advances to the quarterfinals on Saturday and will travel to Marin County to take on No. 1 seed Marin Catholic (19-5).
