LAKE COUNTY >> In a baseball season of jacks or better, the Kelseyville Knights opened each and every hand with a pair of aces.
Senior Noah Lyndall and junior Logan Barrick not only piled up the decisions for the Knights in 2016, but they accounted for every Kelseyville decision during a 20-3 season. Lyndall went 8-1 while Barrick finished 12-2, his 12 victories tying a Lake County record for most wins in a single season. To the surprise of almost no one, the two were recently named the co-most valuable players on the All-North Central League I team as selected by the league’s coaches.
Kelseyville not only ran the table in league play by winning all 14 of its games, but the Knights proved a force in the ultra-competitive North Coast Section Division IV playoffs that followed, winning each of their first two games before falling 2-1 to eventual section champion Arcata in the semifinals. The Knights led that game 1-0 behind Barrick before Arcata rallied with two runs in the bottom of the sixth.
The Knights also landed a position player on the All-League first team, junior shortstop Kyle Ellis, and they had two other players named to the All-League second team, senior first baseman Sambhava Baird and senior third baseman Zack Villalobos. A sixth Knight to receive All-League honors was Kelseyville senior outfielder Asa Peters, who was an honorable mention.
Among other Lake County teams in the NCL I, Middletown senior Chris Davis earned first-team honors while teammate Sam Pyzer, a senior, was named to the second team along with Kelseyville’s Baird and Villalobos and Clear Lake’s Ryan Damiata, a junior, and John Vertrees, a senior.
Each team in the league received one honorable mention. Along with Kelseyville’s Peters, Lake County honors went to Lower Lake senior Isaiah Klein, Clear Lake senior Tyler Manning and Middletown senior Tyler Showen (a complete list of All-Leaguers in baseball and softball is at the bottom of the page).
