LAKEPORT — Both coaches were happy with their team’s first effort and both had reason to be.
The Clear Lake Cardinals beat the Upper Lake Cougars 8-6 in non-league softball action Friday afternoon at Lakeport, the season opener for the two county schools and their first official game in more than a calendar year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just being on the field on a near-perfect spring day was a victory in itself, never mind the outcome.
“Yeah, they’re stoked to be doing anything,” Upper Lake head coach Nick Williamson said after speaking to his players during a post-game chat. “I thought it was great,” Clear Lake head coach Racheal Harmon said when asked about taking the field for the first time since mid-March of 2020.
Clear Lake (1-0) rode the arm of two freshmen pitchers — starter Lilianna Cruz and reliever Nya Marcks — to a victory that wasn’t in the books until a flyball off the bat of Molly McCabe landed safely in the glove of Clear Lake center fielder Joy Ingalls with two outs and the bases jammed full of Cougars in the top of the seventh.
Trailing 8-3 after four innings, the Cougars (0-1) didn’t go quietly, scoring a run in the top of the sixth and two more during a major threat in the seventh when they left the potential tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position.
“They fought back,” Williamson said. “Clear Lake helped us with a couple of mistakes and let us back in the game.”
Throwing strikes consistently was a problem for both Cruz and Marcks, two decently hard throwers who looked dominating for brief times but also a bit shaky when they lost the strike zone in their high school debuts.
“They have a ton of potential,” Harmon said. “Lily’s composure is really good. Nya works really hard too but sometimes she just needs to slow the game down.”
Cruz departed after four innings with a 8-3 lead. She allowed just one hit and three runs, two earned, while striking out five and walking five. Marcks finished up with three innings of four-hit ball and also allowing three runs, only two of which were earned. She struck out three, walked two and hit one.
The Cougars had trouble making contact against Cruz but had more success in the latter innings against Marcks when they collected four of their five hits.
“I think their confidence built up as they went along,” Williamson said. “I thought we started slow, but but we picked it up and hit the ball better there at the end.”
The Cougars were aggressive on the basepaths but also a bit reckless on defense where they struggled to hit the cutoff man all game long, which allowed Clear Lake runners to take some key extra bases.
However, the Cougars did settle down in the final innings, including a couple of gold-star plays at second base by McCabe in the bottom of the fifth when she went high into the air to snag a soft liner off the bat of Grace Gomez. Two batters later she made a nice play to her left to throw out Joy Ingalls on a grounder.
Upper Lake took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on Zoey Petrie’s groundout. Clear Lake pushed ahead 3-1 in the bottom of the second on a RBI double down the left-field line by Sierra Bruch, the first hit of the game for either team. Stella Hill followed with a single to left that sent Bruch to third base, but a throwing error by the outfielder allowed Bruch to score as Hill moved up to second base. After a walk to Kiley Voris loaded the bases, Ingalls bounced out to shortstop to drive in Hill and make it 3-1.
Upper Lake rallied right back with two runs in the top of the third to pull even at 3. The Cougars picked up their first run on an error and the other on a double steal.
Gomez broke the 3-3 tie in the bottom of the inning on a clutch two-out, two-run single to right field that scored Bussard, who left off the inning with an infield single, and Cruz, who followed with a bloop a single into shallow left field just beyond the outstretched glove of Upper Lake shortstop Petrie. The next two Clear Lake batters made outs before Gomez saved the day with her timely bit of hitting.
The Cardinals added three more runs in the bottom of the fourth to go up 8-3. The first two scored on a bases-loaded single by Bussard (2-for-4), the next on a RBI single by pinch-hitter Marcks in her first high school at-bat.
Upper Lake chipped away at the Cardinals’ lead with a run in the sixth courtesy of McCabe’s RBI infield single that loaded the bases with two outs. Trailing 8-4 and looking for more, the inning ended when Marcks induced Petrie to fly out to center field.
The Cougars also made it interesting in the top of the seventh on a Tristin Rhodes RBI groundout and a bases-loaded walk to losing pitcher Karlee Zimmerschied with only one out. But that’s all Upper Lake could get even though its Nos. 2-3 hitters were coming up. Jordan Gudmundson hit a comebacker to Marcks, who threw home for the force out, and McCabe, who already had two hits on the day, drove the ball into medium center field where Ingalls corraled it for the final out.
Zimmerschied pitched the entire game for Upper Lake, giving up nine hits, striking out five and walking four.
Seven Cardinals divided up the team’s nine hits, led by Bussard and Raina Clifton with two hits apiece.
Harmon said her players did some good things but need to shore up their defense and improve their baserunning.
“We made some mistakes, so we know what we need to work on,” she said. “We also seem to struggle with the slower pitchers.”
Harmon praised the play of her junior catcher Bussard, both for her hitting and play behind the plate.
“Hailee is so aggressive as a catcher,” she said. “I also let Hailee call all the pitches.”
Williamson said his Cougars made a few too many “mental errors” in their opener, but was otherwise satisfied with his team’s initial effort of 2021.
“I thought we did a pretty good job,” he said.
Both teams are off until their league openers on April 6. Upper Lake hosts Technology in a North Central League II game while Clear Lake hosts Willits in NCL I action.
