ARCATA >> With a chance to become the first Lake County baseball team to advance to a North Coast Section Division IV championship game, the Kelseyville Knights came up just short on Tuesday night as their season ended with a 2-1 loss to No. 1 seed Arcata at Arcata Ballpark.
“This group of players is like the island of misfit toys,” Kelseyville coach Lou Poloni said. “They had no fear, no doubts. They were going to take down No. 1 and they just missed.”
The Knights, who close out the year at 20-3, were flirting with Lake County history on several counts. They not only needed a win over Arcata to become the first county team to reach a Division IV final, but a victory over the Tigers would have kept alive their bid to become the first county baseball team to win a sectional championship in any division since the Clear Lake Cardinals last did it in 1998.
On an individual note, starting pitcher Logan Barrick, 12-2, was trying to become the first county pitcher to win 13 games in a single season. Just as he did back on March 18 when he pitched all nine innings of a 1-0 victory over Arcata at Lloyd Larson Field in Kelseyville, Barrick shut out the Tigers through the first five innings. Arcata finally got to him for two runs in the bottom of the sixth, both scoring after two were out.
The Knights went ahead 1-0 in the top of the third on a clutch two-out RBI single by Noah Lyndall that scored Devin Dugger, who had earlier reached with a single. Those were the only two hits Kelseyville had against winning pitcher Adam Kirk.
“But we had other opportunities,” Poloni pointed out. “We had runners at second and third in the fourth and left another runner in scoring position in the fifth. We didn’t strike out many times (five). We battled in every at-bat and had several long at-bats. We fought for everything.”
Barrick nearly escaped the bottom of the sixth unscathed when a bang-bang play at third base – an Arcata runner at second base tagged up on a flyout to right field – went the Tigers’ way as the runner was ruled safe. He scored moments later on a single. Another single put runners at first and third. That’s when Arcata struck again while running the first-and-third play, according to Poloni. The runner at first got into a rundown as the runner at third broke for the plate. The throw home arrived in plenty of time but the home plate umpire said the runner slid around catcher Lyndall’s tag.
“It looked like he was out by three feet,” Poloni said. “At least that’s the way I and couple of hundred other people saw it. We should have been going to the top of the seventh tied 1-1.”
Jonah Lewis led off the top of the seventh by grounding a ball deep into the hole at shortstop where Arcata’s Wyatt Tucker made a long and accurate throw to retire Lewis by a half-step. Kyle Ellis went on to draw a two-out walk before Lyndall grounded out to third base to end the game and Kelseyville’s season.
Poloni had nothing but praise for Barrick’s bid to shut out Arcata for a second time this season.”They could not hit him. He kept them off balance.”
Barrick’s first inning started off a bit shaky as the first two Arcata batters hit deep fly balls to right and left field that outfielders Dugger and Asa Peters tracked down for outs.
“After that he settled down and pitched great,” Poloni said. “He retired them 1-2-3 in the third, fourth and fifth innings.”
Kirk also was tough when he had to be for Arcata.
“He throws hard, around 86 miles per hour,” Poloni said. “He throws as hard as anyone we’ve faced.”
Even so, the Knights battled him all night.
“We were not afraid at the plate, we weren’t happy just to be there (in the semifinals), we never had that deer-in-the-headlights look. We were there to beat No. 1 and we had them on the ropes.”
Kelseyville, the undefeated North Central League I champion in 2016 and the No. 5 seed in the original Division IV field, reached Tuesday’s semifinal round with a 8-0 win over El Molino in the first round and a 9-5 victory over No. 4 Healdsburg in the quarterfinals.
Arcata (22-6) advances to the Division IV championship game on Saturday against No. 3 seed Justin-Siena (15-13) of Napa, the two-time defending section champion. That game takes place at noon at Arcata Ballpark.
