CLOVERDALE >> Unable to duplicate the success they experienced at Cloverdale during a North Central League I game back on April 24, the Clear Lake Cardinals fell 4-1 to the host Eagles on Tuesday in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division V playoffs at City Park.
Clear Lake, the No. 10 seed in the 16-team Division V field, finishes the season at 9-12 while Cloverdale (14-7) advances to the quarterfinal round on Friday against No. 2 seed Branson (14-10), a 4-0 winner over Head-Royce in another first-round game Tuesday.
Losing pitcher Cody Rybolt dominated the Eagles during the April 24 game, a 1-0 Clear Lake victory, striking out 12 in 6 2/3 innings. He was on the mound again Tuesday and while he struck out 11 and allowed only two hits in 5 1/3 innings, he also walked five, including the first three Eagles he faced in the bottom of the first inning. Cloverdale went on to score on a fielder’s choice grounder as the runner from third beat the throw to the plate. Rybolt worked out of further difficulty by striking out the next three batters to leave the bases loaded.
Clear Lake pulled even at 1 on a Isaac Lewis sacrifice fly in the top of the fourth, but Cloverdale came up with its only two hits in the bottom of the fourth, including a two-out, bases-loaded double by Kamrin Mitchell that brought home the final three runs of the game.
“They got a timely hit and we didn’t come up with that,” Clear Lake assistant coach John Garrison said of the clutch double down the left-field line.
Like the Eagles, the Cardinals finished with only two hits. They stranded a runner in scoring position in the top of the first but had few scoring opportunities, and none over the final three innings.
“We didn’t do a whole lot,” Garrison said of Clear Lake’s offense, which struggled to score runs most of the season.
Clear Lake’s only hits were singles by Preston Jones and by sophomore Darius Ford, who replaced Rybolt on the mound after the Cardinals’ ace reached his pitch limit in the bottom of the sixth. Ford retired the only two batters he faced.
“It took us probably 10 games to figure everything out,” Garrison said of Clear Lake’s slow start in 2018, including a six-game losing streak after three straight wins to open the season. “Rybolt was brilliant for us during the course of the year and Ford really came on toward the end of the season. “The more he throws and the more experience he gets, he’s really going to be a good one for us down the road.
