KELSEYVILLE >> The baseball scoreboard at Kelseyville’s Lloyd Larson Field was broken Tuesday. It may be assumed that it was not the sheer weight of numbers the hosts were able to hang on it against Cloverdale in a key North Central League I battle that had anything to do with the malfunction.
Kelseyville scored only once against the Eagles’ ace pitcher and leadoff hitter Chris Harms, eventually losing 5-1.
At the end of the day, the Knights and Eagles stood in a flat-footed tie for third place at 5-3 in the league standings. Kelseyville also fell to 9-9 overall.
Errors — five in all — by the Knights figured heavily into their undoing.
Hitting was another issue. Harms, a hard-throwing junior right-hander, scattered five singles over seven innings in beating Kelseyville for a second time this season.
The latter became a matter of unofficial protest by Kelseyville coach Lou Poloni.
“Their guy Harms is probably one of the better pitchers in the league,” Poloni said. “He beat us twice this year. They threw him on a Friday (the first time we played). I’m not saying they’re playing for second place, but sometimes though that’s how it works out. The guy they threw against Clear Lake (the undefeated NCL I leader at 7-0) is much slower and gives them trouble. So I can see why they’d hold him back.”
The Knights did not use their ace, Noah Lyndall, who started at catcher. Logan Barrick pitched all seven innings for Kelseyville and was charged with the loss. He allowed only two earned runs, struck out three and walked two.
“It was not our best game and not our worst,” Poloni said of a contest that snapped a four-game Kelseyville winning streak. “We’re still in position to get to the playoffs. Seven wins should do it and we’re going to try to get number six on Friday (at home against Fort Bragg).”
The Eagles scored twice in the first inning, then added single runs in the third, fifth and sixth.
The only Knight who got as far as third base was the one who scored — Lyndall. He walked opening the bottom of the third, then went to third on a single by Sambhava Baird, and scored on another single by Barrick (2-for-3).
“We didn’t play well defensively, but I thought we swang the bat OK against them,” said Poloni of the Knights. “When it gets to a 5-1 game that sort of changes a lot of things you can do. You back off your running game.”
