UKIAH — Bouncing back from a 2-1 loss in eight innings to Sonoma in the semifinals, the Clear Lake High School softball team beat St. Vincent 6-3 in the third-place game Saturday at the Ukiah Tournament.
Ukiah, a 4-3 winner over Clear Lake on March 8 in Lakeport, went on to beat Sonoma 16-3 in the championship game.
“We played really well against good competition,” Clear Lake coach Gary Pickle said. “We showed a lot of grit in the process.”
Clear Lake (8-2) beat Windsor 6-1 in first-round action on Friday.
The Cardinals trailed 1-0 going to the seventh inning against Sonoma but tied the game on Kelcie Reynolds” one-out RBI double in the bottom half.
Sonoma pushed across the winning run with a RBI single in the top of the eighth.
Reynolds, the team”s starting catcher, went 2-for-3 for Clear Lake. She pitched the top of the fourth when Emily Wingler, a diabetic, had to leave the game with high blood sugar. Wingler returned to the mound in the fifth.
“She was sick … most of our girls were sick, and when she”s sick it tends to push her sugar level higher, not lower,” Pickle said of Wingler, who returned to throw a complete game against St. Vincent.
“She pitched three games in two days being sick,” Pickle said. “She was pretty impressive.”
In 12 innings on the mound Saturday, Wingler struck out a combined 16 and walked just two. She also was backed by a defense that turned four double plays (and five for the tournament).
Clear Lake built an early 4-0 lead against St. Vincent with a run in the top of the second and three more in the third. The Cardinals added two insurance runs in the sixth (the final inning owing to a tournament time rule).
“She (Wingler) was spent in that last inning,” Pickle said of a two-run sixth by the Mustangs. “We were willing to trade outs for runs by that point.”
Wingler went 3-for-3 at the plate against St. Vincent, Vanessa Tullos went 2-for-4 with three RBI, and Heather White went 2-for-4 with a double.
Clear Lake hosts Middletown in North Central League I action today at 4 p.m.
