KELSEYVILLE — Audrey Pasalo’s RBI fielder’s choice in the bottom of the 10th inning gave the Kelseyville High School softball team a 3-2 walkoff victory over the Lower Lake Trojans in a North Central League I pitcher’s duel Friday afternoon at Kelseyville High School.
The game was tied 1-1 after two innings and neither team scored again until the 10th. With international tiebreaker rules in effect — teams start with a runner at second base — the Trojans (1-6 league, 2-6 overall) pushed ahead 2-1 in the top half on Keeley Parks’ RBI single.
Kelseyville (3-3, 5-6) came back to win it with two runs in the bottom half. Faith McIntire started the inning at second base and scored on an error to tie the game. Another Lower Lake error and Kat Wheelan’s infield single loaded the bases for Pasalo, who grounded the ball to deep shortstop. Instead of throwing home, the shortstop’s throw went to second base for the force out as the winning run crossed the plate.
Winning pitcher Jayden Paulich and losing pitcher Parks both went the distance. Paulich scattered five hits, struck out nine and walked three. Parks surrendered six hits, struck out nine and walked none.
“As the game got longer, she pitched even better,” Kelseyville head coach Julie Jackson said of Paulich. “But I’ve got to give it up to the Lower Lake pitcher, too. She hung in there the whole way.”
“It was a really hard game to lose,” Lower Lake head coach Tara Downey said. “I literally felt like the game was never going to end. There’s always going to be a winner and a loser and today we lost. We never gave up, they all worked hard. It was an amazing game.”
Lower Lake took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Kelseyville tied it on Mati Mateer’s RBI single in the bottom of the second. Paulich and Parks each pitched seven scoreless innings until the 10th.
Mateer went 2-for-3 for the Knights while Wheelan, McIntire, Cali Schnabl and Morgan Rogers had the Knights’ other hits. Parks and Rebecca Theodorou each had two hits for Lower Lake and Kaitlyn Klein had a double.
In other NCL I softball action Friday:
St. Helena 13, Clear Lake 2 (5 inn.)
At Lakeport, St. Helena ace Aribella Farrell took a perfect game into the fifth inning as the St. Helena Saints improved to a league-best 6-0 and 11-4 overall with a five-inning victory over the Clear Lake Cardinals, who didn’t get a runner on base until the bottom of the fifth.
Farrell lost her perfect game by issuing a leadoff walk to Montana Wells. She lost her no-hitter when Sierra Bruch followed with a bloop single over the shortstop’s head. Camrin Pivniska added a bunt single later in the inning as the Cardinals went on to score two runs to break up the shutout.
St. Helena battered Clear Lake started Atiana Patino for 12 runs in two-plus innings. The Saints scored five runs in the first, another in the second and six in the third to go up 12-0. Their final run came in the fifth.
“They were solid all around,” Clear Lake head coach Scott Schaefers said of the Saints, who beat Clear Lake a year ago in the quarterfinal round of the North Coast Section playoffs. “We weren’t given a chance. She (Farrell) was retiring us one, two, three, one, two, three.”
The Saints purposely made outs during the game to keep the game from getting even more out of hand.
About the only bright spot for Clear Lake (4-3, 7-5) was denying Farrell a perfect game, no-hitter and shutout all in the span of a few batters in the bottom of the fifth.
“I’ll take any little bit of victory,” Schaefers joked.
