LAKEPORT >> Clear Lake High School’s seniors graduate on Friday night, will attend an overnight Sober Grad party, then hit the road at o’dark thirty Saturday morning for a 10 a.m. quarterfinal-round game against the No. 2-seeded Fortuna Huskies.
If that sounds like a lot of things to pack into such a short time frame, you’d be right. It’s also a labor of love for the Cardinals, who are more than thrilled to be making that long trip north on the Highway 101 corridor after crushing the Piedmont Highlanders 10-0 in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division IV playoffs on Wednesday afternoon at Lakeport. The game was stopped with one out in the bottom of the sixth inning after Shyanne Chapin singled sharply up the middle to score teammates Emily Omiotek and Mina Werner, at which point the 10-run rule came into play.
Coming off a 3-0 defeat to Lower Lake in their regular-season finale on Saturday, a loss that cost the North Central League I champions a perfect league mark of 14-0, the Cardinals (19-5) showed absolutely no ill effects. They received outstanding pitching from Rachel Wingler (one hit allowed, 11 strikeouts), played error-free defense, banged out 12 hits including a ground-rule double and a solo home run, and ran the bases with impunity.
“After losing to Lower Lake, we came back Monday in practice and got after it, so we felt very prepared for today,” Clear Lake coach Doug Wingler said. “They’ve done an incredible job all year,” Wingler added of his senior-dominated squad.
Clear Lake’s speedy slap hitters — Mina Werner and Chapin, who bat 1-2 in the lineup, and Emily Omiotek, who hits ninth — inflicted so many paper cuts on the Highlanders that they didn’t know how badly they were bleeding. That trio was a combined 7-for-10 with a walk and five RBIs, and once they were on base they literally stole everything but the kitchen sink, and only because there isn’t one at the field.
“They can bunt, slap or hit away like Shyanne did in her last at-bat there to drive in those two runs,” Wingler said. “I love the way we run the bases and I really get a kick out of watching them. We need to run the bases aggressively because that’s who we are.”
While the slappers set the table, the rest of Clear Lake’s order cleaned it off. Alicia Ledesma went 1-for-3 with a RBI in the No. 3 hole while cleanup hitter Wingler went 2-for-3 with a RBI single in the third inning and a towering home run over the left-field fence leading off the fifth. Emily Psalmonds, the Cardinals’ No. 7 hitter, just missed hitting her second home run of the season in the bottom of the second, bouncing a ball over the fence in left for a ground-rule RBI double.
Appearing at home for the final time in her four-year career, Wingler stopped the Highlanders cold on one hit and while she did walk two batters early in the game, the veteran more than made up for it with 11 strikeouts, including No. 700 of her career.
The only threat to Wingler’s shutout came in the top of the fourth when Camille Creighton led off with a single into center field, moved up to second on a comebacker off the bat of teammate Megan Deutsche, and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Wingler struck out each of the next two batters to strand Creighton at third.
Clear Lake went down in order in the bottom of the first but broke through for two unearned runs thanks to three Piedmont errors in the second. The Cardinals’ bats took over from there.
In the third, Werner, Chapin, Ledesma and Wingler banged out consecutive singles to make it a 4-0 game. In the fourth, Werner and Chapin had back-to-back two-out RBI singles and the Cardinals added another run on a wild pitch.
Wingler’s home run in the fifth made it 8-0.
Clear Lake’s quick turnaround from graduation on Friday night — when Wingler, Omiotek, Werner, Psalmonds, Ledesma and Anessia Jack all receive their diplomas — to playing ball early Saturday morning shouldn’t be a huge problem, according to Wingler.
Noting that his summer league teams would be on the road by 4 a.m. for an 8 a.m. game in Sacramento, he said that kind of up-before-sunrise training should pay off Saturday.
“It’s a veteran group and they’ve been through this before,” Wingler said. “We had to deal with graduation last year in the playoffs and those seniors set a good example for this year’s group. They were ready to go the next day when we had a game (which Clear Lake won en route to capturing the Division V crown).”
Fortuna, the No. 2 seed in Division IV and last year’s section runner-up to champ Marin Catholic, did play two NCL I teams early in the preseason. The Huskies (20-5) beat St. Helena 8-2 but lost to Cloverdale 2-1. Clear Lake went 4-0 against those two teams during league play.
“I think we’ll be ready to go,” Wingler said.
If the Cardinals defeat the Huskies, they will face the winner of Friday’s quarterfinal between St. Patrick-St. Vincent and Cardinal Newman in the semifinal round next Tuesday or Wednesday at a site and time to be determined.
