CLOVERDALE >> What would have been one of the more incredible comebacks in Clear Lake High School’s storied playoff history instead ended up as an 11-10 loss to the Cloverdale Eagles on Saturday afternoon in the quarterfinal round of the North Coast Section Division V softball playoffs in Cloverdale.
Clear Lake head coach Doug Wingler said the Cardinals (13-12) went through the full range of emotions before watching their season end as a result of Cloverdale’s three-run rally in the bottom of the seventh inning.
“You couldn’t help but feel like you had been punched in the gut,” Wingler said.
Winning pitcher Tehya Bird had a perfect game going three innings and was working with a 7-0 lead before the Cardinals suddenly caught fire in the top of the fourth, a Shyanne Chapin leadoff single sparking a four-run inning. Cloverdale got one one of those runs back in the bottom half to go up 8-4, but back came Clear Lake with another four-run uprising in the top of the sixth to knot the score at 8.
“We were pounding the ball,” Wingler said of the damage inflicted by the Cardinals on Cloverdale’s ace in the fourth and sixth innings.
Clear Lake pushed ahead 10-8 with two runs in the top of the seventh against the third-seeded Eagles, but similar to a 8-7 league loss in eight innings earlier this month at Cloverdale, the Cardinals couldn’t put the Eagles away.
“It was like deja vu,” Wingler said in comparing Clear Lake’s two losses at Cloverdale this season. “It’s one of those things where you’ve got to go out and finish a game and we couldn’t do it either time.”
Kortnie Reynolds walked Bird on a full-count changeup to start the bottom of the seventh, a close pitch Wingler said easily could have been called a strike. Two more hits and an error resulted in two runs crossing the plate and the potential winning run advancing to third base. The game ended with a run-coring wild pitch.
Cloverdale, which won all three of its meetings with Clear Lake in 2017, jumped on Reynolds for four runs in the bottom of the first inning while building its 7-0 lead. Reynolds worked the first three innings, gave way to reliever Shaelyn McIntire, then returned to pitch another 1 2/3 innings. Both pitchers struggled with their control, walking a combined 12 and hitting two.
“That’s 14 free passes,” Reynolds said. “You can’t have that.”
Bird had one of her tougher outings of the season and ended up allowing 10 hits and eight earned runs while striking out seven and walking two.
Reynolds and Sara Ogden each went 2-for-4 with two RBIs for the Cardinals, who return their entire roster with the exception of Chapin in 2018. Sydney Lawler and Madi Ferguson added two hits apiece.
“I saw a lot of growth the last couple weeks of the season,” Wingler said of his young squad. “We could have easily packed it in and gone home after five innings the way the game started, but we didn’t do that. We battled back.”
