KELSEYVILLE — Jon Dougherty struck out eight of the first nine batters he faced and ended up pitching a three-hit shutout Friday afternoon as the Kelseyville Knights beat visiting Lower Lake 7-0 to complete the first half of their North Central League I varsity baseball schedule.
Kelseyville (7-0 league, 10-5 overall) reaches the midway mark in sole possession of first-place atop the league standings but faces a second half during which the Knights play five of their remaining seven games on the road.
“We play Willits and Fort Bragg at home, everyone else we’re on the road,” Kelseyville head coach Billy Shaul said after another all-around solid by the Knights, who are on a seven-game winning streak.
Kelseyville made only one error behind Dougherty. Lower Lake’s leadoff batter in the top of the first reached on an error but was cut down stealing. Dougherty struck out the next eight Trojans. He didn’t allow a hit until Jordan O’Keefe singled with one out in the fourth.
“He was around the zone all day and he threw all three of his pitches for strikes,” Shaul said of Dougherty. “He was able to change the speed on his fastball, too. He was really mixing it up well.”
“Both pitchers pitched a great game,” Lower Lake head coach Mark Peterson said of Dougherty and the Trojans’ O’Keefe, who worked five innings and took the loss.
O’Keefe pitched two scoreless innings before giving up an unearned run in the bottom of the third. Kelseyville picked up two more runs in the fourth for a 3-0 lead, then broke it open with a four-run fifth that Dougherty got rolling with a RBI double. Brock Barrick singled him home and Andrew Huggins capped the rally with a two-out, two-run single.
“That four-run fifth was huge,” Shaul said.
Making a second straight start for the Knights, second baseman Alex Cabrera, batting ninth in the Kelseyville order, doubled to the fence in left field for the Knights’ first hit of the game. He scored their first run later in the inning on a Lower Lake error.
“Alex is really playing well right now,” said Shaul, who received outstanding production from the bottom third of his batting order.
“My number seven, eight and nine guys (Max Hommer, Huggins and Cabrera) went 4-for-8 with four RBIs,” Shaul said.
Huggins went 2-for-3 while teammates Barrick and Reme Strong added two hits apiece. One of Strong’s hit was a triple.
Lower Lake (1-6, 5-7) didn’t get a runner past second base against Dougherty.
Shaul said he is impressed with the improvement the Trojans have made this season under Peterson, Lower Lake’s first-year coach.
“They don’t get cheated with their swings,” Shaul said. “They are aggressive and Jon kind of used that aggressiveness to his advantage today with his off-speed pitches.”
Peterson said the Trojans did all they could against Dougherty and battled to the end, including putting two runners on base in the top of the seventh.
“They don’t give up,” Peterson said of his players. “They fight to the end.”
In other NCL I baseball action Friday:
Willits 15, Middletown 12
At Middletown, on the verge of being 10-runned, the Middletown Mustangs scored seven times in the bottom of the sixth inning to cut Willits’ lead to 13-11 before finally falling to the Wolverines.
“It was rough,” Middletown head coach Tyler Holt said of the 13-4 defict the Mustangs (2-3, 2-8) were facing after Willits scored four times in the top of the sixth go up 13-4. “It looked like we were done, but they proved me wrong,” Holt added of his players.
Jon Hawkins’ two-run triple sparked Middletown’s seven-run outburst in the bottom of the sixth. The Mustangs also picked up a RBI double from Kelby Shook and a two-run double from Jay-J Gerst. Both Shook and Gerst came off the Middletown bench.
Willits hit a two-run home run in the top of the seventh to extend its lead to 15-11. Middletown scored on a two-out error in the bottom half but couldn’t parlay the Willits miscue into another big inning.
“To come back like that, I thought that was really something,” Holt said. “We made some errors and I know we lost the game, but we never stopped battling. I’m OK with that.”
Aiden de Jong went 3-for-5 with a RBI to lead Middletown’s 10-hit attack. Hawkins went 2-for-3 with a double and triple and drove in four of the Mustangs’ runs. Cisco Howland (2-for-4) knocked in three runs.
Troy Taber, the first of three Middletown pitchers, took the loss. He went four innings and left the game trailing 8-3. De Jong and Hawkins following him to the mound.
The loss snapped Middletown’s two-game league winning streak.
St. Helena 7, Clear Lake 4
At Lakeport, St. Helena scored five times in the top of the fourth inning to break open a scoreless game and went on to take a 7-0 lead while beating the Clear Lake Cardinals.
“We kind of got blooped to death in that inning,” Clear Lake head coach Brian Horne said of St. Helena’s five-run fourth. “We walked some guys, but the ball was falling for them.”
The Cardinals (2-4, 4-6) made the Saints sweat a bit over the final two innings. RBI doubles by losing pitcher Greyson Wind and Cody Hayes got Clear Lake onto the scoreboard in the bottom of the sixth. The Cardinals added their final two runs in the seventh on a WInd RBI triple and Hank Ollenberger’s RBI single.
“We kind of woke up,” Horne said of what he described as another low-energy start for his team. “We were a little flat offensively early on. The dugout was quiet and they’re usually very vocal. We need more focus and better energy early in the game.”
Added Horne, “If we can start games like we finished this one, we would be OK.”
Wind and Ollenberger each had two hits while Hayes and Jacob Horne added one apiece. Wind pitched the first 3 1/3 innings, giving way to Ollenberger in the fourth.
