NAPA — Blake Sedrick and Dustin Thaxton combined on a four-hitter and the Kelseyville Knights survived a scare in the bottom of the seventh to edge the Justin-Siena Braves 4-3 in a non-league varsity baseball game that was also the Knights” season opener on Saturday in Napa.
Kelseyville snapped a seven-game losing streak against Justin-Siena, a multi-time North Coast Section champion that competes in the Marin County Athletic League. The Knights beat the Braves in their 1998 (10-4) and 1999 (2-0) season openers, but not since. The two teams met in the regular season and in the playoffs in 2003 and 2005, the Braves winning all four meetings.
“We did a lot of little things right for an opener,” Kelseyville coach Lou Poloni said. “We did make four errors, which is kind of glaring, but we also made a lot of great plays in the field.”
Two of those great plays came in the bottom of the seventh with Kelseyville clinging to a 4-3 lead.
The leadoff hitter in Justin-Siena”s lineup opened the seventh with a single against reliever Thaxton and promptly stole second base. The Braves tried to advance the potential tying run with a sacrifice bunt, but the hitter popped the ball up and catcher Ethan Rohner made a nice catch to retire him, according to Poloni.
“It was popped up right back over his head and that”s often a tough play for a catcher to make,” Poloni said.
The next batter hit a hard liner toward right field but second baseman Chris Aguon was able to spear the ball with a leaping grab. He alertly threw back to second base where shortstop Mike Davis doubled off the runner to end the game.
Thaxton, working the final three innings in relief of starting pitcher Sedrick, recorded the save. He allowed just two hits, one unearned run, struck out three and walked none. Sedrick worked four-plus innings for the victory, allowing two hits, one earned run, striking out three and walking one.
“Blake did a great job for those four innings,” Poloni said. “Our pitching set a tone for getting ahead and pumping strikes.”
Kelseyville (1-0) never trailed after taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the fourth. Justin-Siena got one of those runs back in the bottom half and both teams pushed across two runs in the fifth to make it 4-3.
Davis finished 3-for-4 with a double. Thaxton (1-for-4), Sedrick (1-for-2), Max Huff (1-for-3) and Nick Rodrigues (0-for-3) all drove in runs for Kelseyville.
“We struck out only three times,” Poloni said of his offense. “We hit a lot of line drives and hard ground balls. I was pretty happy with our approach at the plate.”
The early part of Kelseyville”s schedule should help prepare the Knights for the upcoming North Central League I North race. In their first nine games, the Knights, in addition to facing Justin-Siena, will play Cloverdale twice, Fortuna twice, Clear Lake twice, Healdsburg and El Molino.
“They were all playoff teams last year,” Poloni said.
Kelseyville returns to action Wednesday in Cloverdale at 3:30 p.m.
