SANTA ROSA — Racking up 23 hits in five innings is never a bad thing. On Wednesday afternoon, the Middletown Mustangs batted around and around and around while beating the Santa Rosa Panthers 26-0 in non-league varsity baseball action at Santa Rosa High School.
Coached by former Clear Lake High School basketball and baseball star Paige Dumont, the Panthers opened baseball practice only two days ago. Making things even tougher for Dumont, several of his top players were unable to suit up for the team’s season opener.
“Some of his better players are playing football,” Hoogendoorn said.
North Bay League teams such as Santa Rosa High School are in the midst of a COVID-19-shortened spring football season, forcing athletes to decide which sports they’ll play or skip. That’s one reason why the Coastal Mountain Conference, which includes all of Lake County’s schools, voted in late January to cancel its fall and winter sports, with the exception of cross country. There simply aren’t enough athletes to go around, even at larger school such as Santa Rosa.
“We couldn’t do it here (play football and baseball at the same time),” Hoogendoorn said of the much smaller schools that compete in the North Central League I.
“He was missing some pitching and it showed,” Hoogendoorn said.
Not that Middletown’s coach is crying any tears for Dumont and the Panthers.
“It’s always fun to play him and compete against him,” Hoogendoorn said. “I felt kind of bad he’s missing a couple of guys, but I don’t care. We need to get on the winning side of things. We have all the pieces we need but we still need to compete.”
Middletown squared its season record at 2-2 by scoring at least three runs in every inning of the five-inning game, which was called early because of the 10-run mercy rule. The Mustangs had a 5-0 lead after the first, were up 12-0 after three innings, and busted the game wide, wide open with a nine-run top of the fourth.
A handful of Middletown batters got two game’s worth of at-bats in this one, including Cole Ketchum, who went 4-for-7 with a RBI and four runs, and Tyler Crudo, who went 2-for-7 with a RBI and four runs. Bryan Riehl added three hits while Crudo, Will Aden, Justin Urbina, Luke Hoogendoorn, Zach Dubois and Xavier Perez all had two hits. Ketchum, Crudo and Aden drove in four runs apiece while Dubois knocked in three. Aden had the only extra-base hit, a double.
Winning pitcher Dax Green left after two innings and did not allow a hit. He struck out two and walked two. Riehl pitched the next two innings, and Aden worked the fifth.
Santa Rosa had only five hits.
Middletown is home Saturday to play another Santa Rosa team, Montgomery, beginning at 4 p.m. at Wes Martin Field. The Mustangs open North Central League I action Tuesday at home against Lower Lake, then hit the road Wednesday to take on Piner, also from Santa Rosa, in a non-league game.
Notes: Following the regulation five innings on Wednesday, Middletown and Santa Rosa played two more unofficial innings to make sure all of the players on both sides received playing time.
“It dragged on for a bit, but we wanted to make sure all of the kids got in there,” Hoogendoorn said.
