Cardinals score three in seventh to beat Saints 5-3

Albaum goes distance as CLHS goes to 3-1 in league play

ST. HELENA >> Talk about your character-building games. Three days after taking it on the chin in a 21-3 five-inning home loss to the Middletown Mustangs, the Clear Lake High School varsity baseball team hit the road Friday afternoon to play a St. Helena squad off to a 2-0 start in the North Central League I standings.

Advantage St. Helena, right? Wrong.

Maddox Albaum pitched a complete game and the Cardinals scratched out three runs in the top of the seventh despite getting only one hit in the inning to upend the Saints 5-3 and improve to 3-1 in league play and 4-6 overall.

“The energy for the whole game was really, really high,” Clear Lake head coach Ed Pepper said. “Maddox kept his composure when things got tight. He really hit the strike zone.”

Clear Lake’s winning rally began with Cody Hayes leading off the seventh by reaching on a throwing error. Hank Ollenberger singled him over to second and Greyson Wind put down a sacrifice bunt, pushing the ball up the third-base line where it was fielded by the St. Helena pitcher. His throw to third base in an attempt to force Hayes instead sailed down the left-field line for an error, and both Hayes and Ollenberger scored to give Clear Lake a 4-3 lead. An alert Wind was running the whole time and ended up at third base. One out later, Wind scored on a Ryan Ollenberger grounder, a dribbler between the pitching mound and first base.

Albaum began the bottom of the seventh inning at 99 pitches (11 shy of the 110 pitch-count rule).

“I told him that if he was going to finish the game, he had to do it quickly,” Pepper said.

He did, retiring the Saints 1-2-3 on eight pitches.

“Earlier in the game when he was around 60 pitches I asked him if he felt OK and if needed to come out,” Pepper said. “He said, ‘I’m good and I’ll make quick work of them.’ And that’s what he did. He found the strike zone and lived in it.”

Albaum struck out five and walked three while scattering eight hits.

Hayes, Jonathon Werner (double), Matthew Martin and Drake Smart had hits for Clear Lake.

The Cardinals return home Tuesday to play Lower Lake at 4 p.m.

“We just need to continue to play our game and do what we do,” Pepper said.

“The energy for the whole game was really, really high. Maddox kept his composure when things got tight. He really hit the strike zone.”

— Ed Pepper, Clear Lake head coach