KELSEYVILLE — The Kelseyville Knights didn”t go quietly in their final at-bat, but they did fall 7-5 to the McKinleyville Panthers in the semifinal round of the North Coast Section Division IV baseball playoffs on Thursday at Lloyd Larson Field.
McKinleyville (18-8) moves on to the Division IV championship game Saturday against No. 1 seed Marin Catholic (22-2). First pitch is 4:30 p.m. at St. Mary”s College in Moraga.
Kelseyville, the North Central League I North champion and No. 7 seed, closes out a successful 2011 campaign at 17-8, a winner in 15 of its final 19 games.
Though the Knights were hoping for one more game, Kelseyville head coach Lou Poloni said he was truly proud of what his team accomplished this year.
“We started the season 2-4 and we finished 17-8, so we had a nice 15-4 run in there. Our schedule was tough. We played a lot of tough teams,” Poloni said.
McKinleyville, third in the Humboldt-Del Norte Big 4 standings behind Eureka and Arcata this season, also has played its best ball at the end, according to coach Dustin Dustra.
“We started 1-5 in league but went 5-1 to finish out league, and now we”ve won three playoff games,” Dutra said. “We are exactly where you want to be at the end of the season ? playing meaningful games.”
The final play of Thursday”s game was a combination of agony/exhilaration for Dutra as well as for players, coaches and fans on both sides.
McKinleyville, the home team as decided by a coin flip before the game, took a 7-3 lead into the top of the seventh behind ace left-hander Kenton Johnson, who allowed the Knights three third-inning runs but nothing else until the seventh.
Nick Rodrigues opened the inning by singling to right field. One out later, Nic Vargas worked a full-count walk, which rolled the batting order over to No. 1 Mike Davis, who grounded out to first base as Rodrigues and Vargas advanced on the play. Chris Aguon hit what should have been the final out of the game, a grounder to third base that Michael Saveliff couldn”t come up with cleanly. Rodrigues scored on the error as Vargas pulled into the third.
Dustin Thaxton came up next and, like Aguon, hit what should have been an inning- and game-ending grounder, but a low throw by shortstop Juston Frazier eluded the grasp of first baseman Corbyn Bubenik as Vargas scored to make it 7-5.
Before the Knights could even think about what the next batter, cleanup hitter Devon Call (2-for-3), might do, the game ended. Aguon, who was the runner at first base when Thaxton hit his grounder to shortstop, tried to advance to third base on the error and was gunned down on a close play for the third and final out, leaving Call, the potential winning run, stranded in the on-deck circle.
“I give credit to my first baseman (Bubenik) and third baseman (Saveliff) for being heads up on that play,” Dutra said.
“It was just an aggressive baserunning mistake,” Poloni said of Aguon”s miscue.
In a game where both defenses committed four errors, the Panthers built an early 5-0 lead and chased Kelseyville starter Davis after just 1 2/3 innings. Thaxton relieved and worked the final 4 1/3 innings, allowing five hits and two runs.
McKineyville scored an unearned run in the bottom of the first before getting to Davis for four runs in the second despite getting only two hits in the inning. Davis was his own worst enemy at times, walking three batters, the final one with the bases loaded, and hitting another.
The Panthers also took advantage of a throwing error in the inning to go up 2-0. Frazier drew a bases-loaded walk to make it 3-0 and, with Thaxton in the game and facing his first batter, Zach Rowe singled to left-center field to drive in two more runs and make it 5-0.
Kelseyville immediately answered with three runs in the top of the third. With two outs and Vargas at first base, Aguon singled him over to third. Thaxton followed with a booming RBI double to the left-center field gap, scoring Vargas. Call came up next and just missed hitting a three-run homer as his drive to deep right field hit the top of the fence and bounced back for a long two-run single that made it 5-3.
The Panthers loaded the bases on three straight singles to open the bottom of the fourth. Sam Schmidt bounced into a force play at second base to bring in a run and make it 6-3 and an error on a pickoff play allowed the Panthers to score their final run. McKinleyville had a runner at third with just one out, but Thaxton retired the next two hitters on infield popups to end the inning.
Kelseyville didn”t threaten again until the seventh.
Johnson finished with a six-hitter, striking out six and walking only two.
“He”s our No. 1 guy and he”s really thrown like a No. 1 the last month of our season,” Dutra said. “He threw a great game ? he threw strikes.”
While Kelseyville”s fans showed up in force, including a large and vocal contingent located down the first-base line just beyond the McKinleyville dugout, Dutra said it”s all part of the game and that the Panthers didn”t mind.
“They stayed pretty focused,” Dutra said of his players. “They (Knights) brought a large crowd to root for their team, their fans had a lot of spirit.”
“We had tremendous community support all year,” Poloni said. “We had Little League teams canceling games so they could come out here and root for us. I had people come up to me and tell me they haven”t been to a game in 30 years, but they really enjoyed coming out to one of our games. Baseball is a dying sport, but I think we rejuvenated that a little bit, at least in our community.”
While the Knights are losing four senior starters in Davis, Aguon, Rodrigues and Blake Sedrick, Poloni said the future of Kelseyville”s varsity baseball program is bright.
“It was a great group of seniors that I”m going to miss, but we return three All-Leaguers who are juniors, our 3-4-5 hitters, and we have two sophomores who are pretty good,” Poloni said.
“It was a great year,” Poloni added.
