KELSEYVILLE — The Arcata Tigers swept another doubleheader from another Lake County team — this time Kelseyville — on Monday during non-league varsity baseball action at Lloyd Larson field.
Arcata snapped a 5-5 tie with a five-run sixth inning in the opener and went on to win 12-5, then came back in game two to beat the Knights 9-0 behind the strong pitching of Sam Kauffman.
Arcata beat Middletown 12-2 in six innings and 23-0 in five innings on March 23 in Middletown.
“Arcata is definitely a playoff team,” Kelseyville coach Lou Poloni said. “Their shortstop (Cameron Wallace) is nails, they”ve got a great catcher (Luis Bressoud), and they do a lot of things well.”
And one of those things is catch just about everything hit to them on defense. The Tigers didn”t commit a single error in 14 innings and also turned five double plays on the day, most of those initiated by Wallace.
“We hit some hard shots his way and he turned them into two outs,” Poloni said.
Kelseyville (2-4) once again struggled on defense, committing five errors in each game. Defensive miscues in game one fueled two five-run innings by the Tigers — in the third and sixth innings.
Trailing 1-0 going to the top of the third in the opener, Arcata took advantage of three Kelseyville errors in the inning to go up 5-1. The Knights battled back to tie the game with a run in the bottom half, another in the fourth and two in the fifth on a Max Huff two-run double.
“At the plate we battled pretty good, but defensive letdowns hurt us,” Poloni said in summing up the first game.
Arcata broke the 5-5 tie with five in the top of the sixth, an inning that featured two more Kelseyville errors.
Camilo Diaz worked the first six innings for the Knights and took the loss despite allowing only two earned runs. He struck out two and walked three.
“Diaz pitched pretty well,” Poloni said. “It was his first outing of the year because the games have been so spaced out (because of rainouts), but he”s got good stuff. He”s a junior and he”s tough, and he was facing a real good hitting team.”
Huff and Dustin Thaxton each went 2-for-4 with a double and Zack Bailey went 2-for-3 for Kelseyville, which had the same number of hits as Arcata (10).
The second game was dominated by the Tigers” ace, Kauffman, who worked the first five innings for the victory. Arcata provided him with a 2-0 lead in the top of the first before he had thrown his first pitch. The Tigers continued to build on their lead with two runs in the third and two more in the fourth. They put the game away in the sixth when Bressoud connected off reliever Huff for a three-run homer to left-center field.
Devon Call worked the first five innings for Kelseyville and was followed to the mound by Huff in the sixth and Dasaan Vasquez, making his varsity debut, in the seventh.
Vasquez retired the first two Arcata batters in the inning on just two pitches and struck out the next batter.
“He”s only a junior and will be a big part of our pitching staff next year,” Poloni said of Vasquez.
The Knights were limited to four hits in game, singles by Thaxton, Jacob Martinek, Dalton Gunther and Mike Snyder.
Kelseyville hosts Cloverdale in North Central League I action today at 4 p.m. The Knights are home again on Friday to face Fort Bragg at 4 p.m.
