MIDDLETOWN >> In a game Middletown trailed 11-0 after the top of the third inning, the Piedmont Highlanders almost made the mistake of celebrating too early.
“It was a learning lesson, especially against the No. 1 seed,” Piedmont coach Eric Olson said of his team’s 11-8 victory on Wednesday in the semifinal round of the North Coast Section Division IV baseball playoffs at Wes Martin Field in Middletown.
Fourth-seeded Piedmont (17-9) will meet No. 6 Redwood Christian on Saturday in the Division IV championship game, and the Highlanders might need a couple of days to calm their nerves after a tense finish on Wednesday.
How can an 11-0 game turn tense?
Piedmont began freely substituting after scoring seven times in the top of the third, an inning during which the Highlanders sent 10 batters to the plate. Two of them, Joe Sassi and winning pitcher Carson Gerhardy, capped the big rally with back-to-back home runs — Sassi blasting a three-run shot that easily cleared the fence in right-center field and Gerhardy legging out an inside-the-park home run with a twisting drive down the right-field line.
While Olson said he didn’t regret going to his bench as much as he did against top-seeded Middletown, he conceded that he probably starting substituting earlier than he should have.
“Our biggest strength this season has been our depth and I have confidence bringing guys in off my bench,” he said. “You’ve got to give credit to Middletown for taking advantage of the mistakes we made and coming back the way they did. That’s the mark of a good team.”
“We teach the kids never to give up,” Middletown head coach Jeff Mielke said as his North Central League I-championship squad scored six times in the bottom of the fifth inning to make a game of it, then got even closer with single runs in the sixth and seventh.
Middletown was one out away from being 10-runned in the bottom of the fifth when Cameron Ketchum doubled to left field to drive in two runs and cut Piedmont’s still huge lead to 11-3. The Mustangs went on to add three more runs in the inning on a bases-loaded walk to Aiden Skinner and a two-run single off the bat of Drake Harbison.
Two errors on Piedmont’s third baseman on the same play in the bottom of the sixth closed the gap to 11-7. Down to their final three outs in the seventh, Middletown made two quick outs. Before you could snap your fingers, the Mustangs were right back up in the Highlanders’ face looking for that improbable comeback.
Harbison got things rolling with a double to left field, his third hit of the game, and pinch-hitter Jordan Hernandez hit the first pitch he saw from reliever Ben Levinson for a RBI single. Levinson beaned Isaiah Moore with a pitch, bringing cleanup hitter Jack Bliss to the plate as the potential tying run.
Olson went to his bullpen for the fourth time in the game, bringing in Ryan Fitzgerald to face the dangerous Bliss, who fell behind in the count 1-2 before drilling a line drive to the left fielder for the final out.
“I was thinking it was one of those Hollywood moments where he would hit the ball off the lights,” Mielke said, hoping that Bliss’ at-bat would be something on the order of the Roy Hobbs game-winning three-run home run in the 1984 baseball classic The Natural.
While Middletown’s offense was pounding out seven of its 11 hits over the final three innings to give Piedmont a near heart attack, the Highlanders, who had subbed a couple of their top players out of the game, had no success adding to their lead once Middletown’s Luke Holt entered the game. The senior came on to end the Piedmont seven-run third inning, retiring the only batted he faced, and then slammed the door in the Highlanders’ faces the rest of the way.
Holt ended up pitching the final 4 1/3 innings. He allowed just one hit, struck out 11 and walked five. While Piedmont did threaten in the sixth, putting runners at second and third with no outs, Holt struck out three of the next four batters to end the uprising. He also struck out the side in the fourth and fifth innings.
“We were surprised not to see Holt,” Olson said.
Losing pitcher Thomas Cook, who worked six innings for the win in the Mustangs’ 3-1 victory over El Molino on Saturday, returned to the mound with three days rest but ended up giving up seven runs in 2 2/3 innings although only four were earned.
Mielke said he had no regrets about starting Cook against Piedmont.
“He’s the guy that’s been doing it for us all year,” Mielke said. “Unfortunately he had to throw some pitches he shouldn’t have had to throw, but when you make errors like we did (five in the first three innings) that’s going to happen. He also left some of those pitches up.”
And leaving the ball up in the strike zone against a team such as Piedmont isn’t a good idea, according to Mielke.
“That lineup is no joke,” Mielke said. “It’s loaded with athletes one to nine.”
Sandwiched between Cook’s 2 2/3-inning stint and Holt’s incredible 4 1/3 innings of relief was a four-batter stint by reliever Keegan Cutting that the junior would probably just as soon forget. After relieving Cook with two outs in the top of the third, two runs already in for a 6-0 Piedmont lead and one runner on base, he walked two batters, uncorked a run-scoring wild pitch, allowed Sassi’s three-run home run and Gerhardy’s inside-the-park solo shot before giving way to Holt.
Gerhardy also had a two-run single in the top of the first inning for the first two runs of the game, which were set up by two Middletown fielding errors. Dylan Skov singled home another run and Max Bekes had a RBI groundout to make it 4-0.
Middletown did load the bases with two outs in the bottom of the second Piedmont starter Gerardy,who struck out the next batter to end the threat and his brief two-inning stint on the mound.
Adam Porter worked scoreless third and fourth innings for Piedmont before Middletown began its comeback in the bottom of the fifth against new pitcher Ben Fujita, who simply couldn’t throw strikes. He ended up lasting only two-thirds of an inning while allowing three hits, four walks and six runs, all of them earned.
Along with Harbison, who ended up 3-for-5 in his final high school game, two other Middletown seniors – Moore and Ketchum – added two hits apiece.
“I’ve got eight seniors,” Mielke said. “They brought a (league) pennant to us and that hasn’t happened very often down here.”
Game notes: It’s the third straight year a Lake County teams has reached the Division IV semifinals only to come up short (Kelseyville made it that far last season and in 2015) … While he loses eight seniors, Mielke will inherit a load of talent from Middletown’s junior varsity squad, which shared the NCL I title with Fort Bragg this season … Middletown fans can watch six of their seniors suit up one last time on Sunday during the NCL East vs. West All-Star game at Mendocino College in Ukiah beginning at 1 p.m. Mielke is managing the East squad, which consists of seniors from Middletown, Lower Lake, Kelseyville, Clear Lake and St. Helena. Playing for the West squad are seniors from Willits, Cloverdale, Fort Bragg, Laytonville, Sonoma Academy and Technology. The West squad is managed by Willits’ Rick Yadon.
