EUREKA — All-Tournament selection Ethan Maize pitched six strong innings along with going 2-for-2 with a double and two RBIs, but the Clear Lake Cardinals fell 4-3 to University Prep of Redding on Saturday in the consolation championship game of the St. Bernard’s Baseball Tournament.
Running short of pitching after playing two games Friday, Clear Lake head coach Ed Pepper went with the senior Maize and he responded with six strong innings.
“I gave him the ball and he did a really, really good job,” Pepper said. “He just ran out of pitches there at the end.”
University Prep scored its final two runs to in the top of the sixth to erase a 3-2 Clear Lake lead.
“We made some fundamental errors, really silly stuff (that cost us),” Pepper said. “Otherwise we played then hard for seven full innings. The coach at St. Bernard’s said it was one of the best games of the weekend.”
After Maize’s 104-pitch outing, Drake Smart relieved to start the seventh and struck out the side.
Smart went 1-for-3 with a double and Cody Hayes went 1-for-3 with a RBI in the game.
“All the way around, it was a good weekend of baseball for us,” Pepper said.
Clear Lake (3-2) plays under the lights Tuesday at Recreation Park in Healdsburg before opening its North Central League I schedule Friday at Willits.
McKinleyville 7, Middletown 1
The Middletown Mustangs fell to the McKinleyville Panthers in the third-place game of the St. Bernard’s Tournament, falling to 1-6 on the season.
After scoring 12 runs in an opening-round win over Fortuna on Friday afternoon, the Mustangs’ bats went cold as they fell 13-0 to eventual tournament champion Arcata late Friday, managing only two hits, and they had only five hits in the loss Saturday to McKinleyville.
“I don’t know if the 13-0 loss crushed our spirits,” Middletown head coach Tyler Holt said of Middletown’s lack of offensive production for a second straight tournament game. “McKinleyville’s pitcher had a fastball and curveball, nothing super special, but we couldn’t get our bats on it.”
Middletown briefly tied the game at 1-1 on Bryan Riel’s sacrifice fly in the top of the second that scored teammate Cole Ketchum, who walked earlier in the inning. Riel also had one of the Mustangs’ five hits.
McKinleyville got that run back in the bottom of the second to go up 2-1. The Panthers padded their lead with a run in the fourth, two more in the fifth and two in the sixth.
Losing pitcher Cole Ketchum worked the first four innings, allowing three runs on six hits. Noah Williams finished up.
Hunter Hartzog, Micah Dymer, Jesse Young and Zach Dubois had Middletown’s other hits.
Luke Hoogendoorn was named to the All-Tournament team.
Despite their tough preseason, the Mustangs figure to be squarely in the mix when North Central League I play opens Friday. Middletown opens in Lower Lake at 4 p.m.
