KELSEYVILLE — Up and down, up and down, around and around.
The 2010 season has been one long roller-coaster ride full of twists and hard turns for the Kelseyville High School varsity baseball team and it”s soon-to-need-therapy head coach Lou Poloni.
Four days after being eliminated from the North Central League I North race, the Knights, fighting for an at-large berth in the upcoming North Coast Section Division IV playoffs, improved their chances with a 4-3 victory over NCL I South leader St. Vincent in interlock action on Tuesday afternoon at Lloyd Larson Field in Kelseyville.
Pinch-hitter Devon Call”s RBI single with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning scored Mike DeGregorio with the winning run as the Knights improved to 11-9 with two games remaining ? home against Fort Bragg on Friday and away at Cloverdale on May 20.
“I was telling them all game somebody”s got to come up with the big hit,” Poloni said.
Turns out it was Call, who drove the ball up the middle to score DeGregorio from third. DeGregorio led off the inning with a single into center field and moved up to second on a one-out sacrifice bunt by Dustin Thaxton, who nearly legged out a single. DeGregorio then took a huge gamble by taking off for third base on a pitch in the dirt, barely beating the throw. Call took a strike before connecting on his game-winning hit.
Thaxton”s home run to left field leading off the bottom of the second gave the Knights a 1-0 lead. St. Vincent (17-5) pushed in front with two runs in the top of the fourth, but the Knights regained the lead with two runs in the bottom of the inning. Two-out RBI singles by Steven Grossner and Blake Panos gave Kelseyville a 3-2 advantage.
St. Vincent tied the game with a run in the top of the sixth.
Mike Davis, working in relief of starter Blake Sedrick, picked up the win with 1 2/3 innings of shutout ball. Sedrick went the first 5 1/3 innings, allowing five hits and only one earned run while striking out two and walking two.
“The storyline is Blake Sedrick,” Poloni said. “Holding that lineup to five hits in 5 1/3 was impressive. He battled the whole way.”
Sedrick also took a line drive off his pitching arm in the fourth. The ball ricocheted over to first base where the out was recorded.
Davis, Panos, DeGregorio, Ryan Cockerton and Nick Rodrigues had two hits apiece for the Knights, who had 14 hits in all and stranded 10 runners.
Michael Meiswinkel went 2-for-3 with a RBI for St. Vincent, which will finish no worse than tied for first in the NCL I South standings. The Mustangs close out league play Friday in Cloverdale needing a win to secure the outright South championship. If they lose, they”ll share the league title with Clear Lake.
