LAKEPORT >> Milestone victories really don’t mean much to Clear Lake High School softball coach Gary Pickle unless they clinch league titles or win section championships.
Such was not the case on Thursday afternoon as the Cardinals, still smarting from a 2-0 loss to Cloverdale on Tuesday in the North Central League I opener for both teams, took out their frustrations on the Willits Wolverines with a 18-2 five-inning victory at Lakeport.
“I didn’t even think about it until after the game was over,” Pickle said of his 400th win as Clear Lake’s coach.
Current players and former players in attendance celebrated with Pickle, who received an autographed game ball with 400 clearly visible on one side.
“The girls reminded me about it after the game,” said Pickle, who is in his 23rd season. “I didn’t really think about it during the game.”
Pickle isn’t being modest when he says that, he’s just being Pickle.
“I don’t get caught up in numbers,” he said.
Clear Lake alumni were present, including two players — Chelsea Moses and Amber McKinney — from his first section championship club in 2002.
“It was great seeing them,” Pickle said. “You have to have a lot of good players to win that many games.”
Pickle said his only focus on Thursday was seeing the Cardinals play a solid game against the Wolverines. Clear Lake came through for its coach.
• Winning pitcher Rachel Winger tossed a three-hitter, struck out seven and walked none while allowing just one earned run.
• Clear Lake’s offense banged out 15 hits, including at least one hit from eight of the nine starters and another four from his bench — Cardinal reserves went 4-for-4 at the plate.
• The Cardinals’ defense also did the job, committing a single error that gave Willits its first run on an overthrow of first base in the top of the third inning.
“I thought we had some missing ingredients after the Cloverdale game, but a lot of pieces fell into place today,” Pickle said. “We took a step forward.”
Wingler retired the Wolverines in order in the first, second and fourth innings. In the third, she pulled off the rare feat of striking out four in one inning. Losing pitcher Jamie Johnstone led off with a double into left field but Wingler came back to strike out the next two batters. She got her third straight strikeout with Dara Collicott standing at the plate, but the ball rolled away from catcher Anessia Jack, who quickly retrieved it but threw high to first base, the ball sailing into right field for an error and Johnstone scoring on the play. Wingler struck out her fourth straight batter, Amanda Mason, to end the inning.
“Rachel pitched better today,” Pickle said. “We corrected a few things and she had more movement on her pitches.”
Clear Lake left runners at the corners in a scoreless first inning but surged ahead 3-0 in the second on a two-run single by Jack and a RBI single by Hannah Norwood. The Cardinals added four more runs in the third on Alicia Ledesma’s run-scoring groundout, a wild pitch, and two run-scoring errors by the Wolverines, who committed eight errors on the day.
The Cardinals continued their scoring barrage with an 11-run fourth, an inning during which they sent 16 batters to the plate and collected nine hits. Pinch-hitter Crystal Zepeda batted twice in the fourth and had singles each time as did Aliza Atkins. Wingler got things rolling with a RBI double, the second of four straight Clear Lake hits to open the inning.
Willits picked up a run in the top of the fifth on a two-out RBI single but the batter made a wide turn at first and ended up getting thrown out following a rundown.
“They played a good game today,” Pickle said of the Cardinals. “It was nice to see.”
Clear Lake returns to action today against Windsor at 2 p.m. in the opening round of the Ukiah Tournament. The Cardinals play two more games on Saturday at Ukiah High School. If Clear Lake beats Windsor today, its play at noon on Saturday. If it loses, it plays at 10 a.m.
