KELSEYVILLE — Kelseyville”s first five batters reached safely on hits, including back-to-back home runs by Dustin Thaxton and Devon Call, and the Knights parlayed a six-run first inning into a 13-3 six-inning victory over the Lower Lake Trojans on Tuesday afternoon at Lloyd Larson Field.
The win lifts Kelseyville to 5-0 in the North Central League I North varsity baseball standings while Lower Lake slips to 1-4. The Knights play the only other undefeated North team, Middletown (3-0), on Friday in Middletown, the first of two league meetings between the teams this season.
“Obviously Friday is huge,” Kelseyville coach Lou Poloni said of the game with Middletown. “We just need to keep playing well.”
Kelseyville, now 13-5 overall, has won six straight and 11 of 12. Earlier this season the Knights were winning with pitching, defense and some timely hits. Now they”re also hitting the ball. In fact, they”re pounding it.
“We had some good at-bats,” Poloni said of the Knights” 17 hits, including five for extra bases. They also struck out only once.
“When you send 34 batters to the plate and strike out once, that means you”re putting a lot of pressure on the other team. You”re making people make plays,” Poloni said.
Kelseyville jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the bottom of the first and never looked back. Mike Davis led off with a triple and scored on Chris Aguon”s infield single. Thaxton followed with a deep drive over the left-center field fence to make it 3-0 and Call blasted his home run down the right-field line to make it 4-0. A two-out single by Nic Vargas later in the inning pushed the lead to 6-0.
Lower Lake, now 3-11 overall, got as close as 7-3 with a run in the third and two in the top of the fourth after the Knights tallied a single run in the second. But Kelseyville answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth and then added two runs in each of the fifth and sixth innings.
“Lower Lake battled us hard,” Poloni said.
Thaxton, Call, Davis and Max Huff finished with three hits apiece. Augon, Thaxton, Call, Vargas, Zack Bailey and winning pitcher Blake Sedrick had two RBIs each.
David Martinez went 1-for-3 with a double and a RBI for the Trojans, who were limited to three hits.
Kevin O”Quinn was the losing pitcher.
