KELSEYVILLE — Don’t look now but the Kelseyville High School varsity baseball teams is on a bit of a roll after shutting out the St. Helena Saints 4-0 in North Central League I varsity baseball action Friday afternoon at Lloyd Larson Field.
Throw in a 5-1 Middletown victory over a previously undefeated Fort Bragg team and Cloverdale’s walk-off 4-3 win over Clear Lake at Cloverdale, and the NCL I standings are suddenly a cozy affair after Friday’s round of games.
While Fort Bragg still leads the league at 4-1, Clear Lake, Cloverdale and Middletown are all 4-2 followed by Kelseyville at 3-3.
The Knights, now 3-6 overall, began their week with an exciting 11-10 victory at Middletown.
“The kids are coming together and having fun,” Kelseyville head coach Billy Shaul said. “They’re playing like a baseball team. Today we played really solid defense behind Brownie (starting pitcher Jeremy Brown). We fielded every ground ball we needed to.”
Brown, the team’s ace, needed only 83 pitches to throw a complete-game three-hitter. He allowed just one runner to reach third base, that in the fifth inning, and the runner was erased on an inning-ending double play.
“We brought the infield in (with a runner at third base and only one out) with their No. 9 hitter coming up, and they hit a soft line drive to the second baseman,” Shaul said.
The St. Helena runner at third wandered too far off the bag and was doubled off.
Kelseyville gave Brown, who struck out five and walked two, a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Jake Keithly opened the inning with a single and scored on a double by Brandon Garcia (2-for-3). Garcia raced home on a single by Brown (2-for-3).
The Knights added their final two runs in the third. Andrew Huggins led off with a walk, Garcia singled and Brown singled to load the bases with no outs. After a force play at the plate, Zayne Barker’s squeeze bunt brought home a run and advanced the other runners. A wild pitch gave Kelseyville a 4-0 lead.
Brown cruised the rest of the way. While he threw 17 pitches in the third inning, he also had nine- and seven-pitch innings to keep his pitch count down.
Kelseyville hosts Lower Lake on Tuesday to close out the first half of its league schedule. The Knights open the second half next Friday at home against Cloverdale.
