COLUSA — It’s not the way they wanted to start their season, but at least there is a season to start.
Clear Lake’s Cardinals headed to Colusa on Friday and dropped a 13-1 non-league decision to the Redhawks in varsity baseball action, marking the first high school sporting event using a ball to be played by a Lake County team in nearly a calendar year (364 days to be exact).
The young Cardinals, who don’t have enough players to field a junior varsity team this season, ran into a buzz saw of sorts as the Colusa squad they went up against is largely a veteran unit that went 6-0 last season before the 2020 campaign was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, two of Colusa’s victories last season were at Clear Lake’s expense, including a 3-1 victory in Lakeport on March 6, 2020, Clear Lake’s last game until Friday.
“Colusa is a top-notch team,” Clear Lake head coach Ed Pepper said. “They’ve been playing travel ball since August and haven’t missed a beat. Ninety percent of my guys haven’t played in a year.”
Colusa needed only 4 1/2 innings to 10-run the Cardinals (0-1), who trailed 4-0 after one inning and 10-0 after two innings. Clear Lake make it 10-1 in the top of the third on a Cody Hayes RBI single, one of his two hits on the day. He knocked in Ryan Ollenberger, who had reached base on a fielder’s choice.
Hayes, just a freshman, finished the day 2-for-3.
“We’re a varsity teams with a lot of freshmen and sophomores on it,” Pepper said. “We’ll get there. We’ve got a lot of athletes who missed their other sports this year. They want to just go out there and do something.”
One of those players is senior Matthew Martin, who couldn’t play football or basketball this season because both sports were canceled.
“He hasn’t played since Little League,” Pepper said. “I started him in right field and he made two good catches, one in right field and another in left field when I moved him there.”
Clear Lake suited up 15 players for its season opener.
Jonathan Werner also had a hit for the Cardinals.
Losing pitcher Maddox Albaum worked the first 1 2/3 innings, striking out three and walking five. Clear Lake pitching issued only six walks but also hit four batters.
“We’ll get it going,” Pepper said. “We just need some time.”
Clear Lake is scheduled to scrimmage at Upper Lake on Tuesday before returning to action Friday with a non-league game in Middletown at 4 p.m.
