Ukiah baseball narrowly defeats Vintage, advances to quarterfinals

Ukiah Boys varsity baseball advanced to the North Coast Sectional playoffs. The Wildcats took on Vintage High in the first round on Wednesday in Napa. Ukiah faced Vintage earlier on in the season in a non-league game and fell short. This time Wildcats got their revenge in an elimination game defeating their first round opponents 1-0 in a pitcher's duel. Neither team was able to push a run across until Ukiah plated the only run in their half of the sixth inning. Caleb Ford lead off the sixth with a single to left field. Ethan Rinehart grounded out to shortstop advancing Ford to second, putting him in scoring position. Austin Ford then grounded out to shortstop advancing Caleb to third. Ethan Holbrook took the second pitch he saw in the at bat and singled to right field scoring Caleb Ford. That was all Ukiah would need.

Luke Schat was the starting pitcher for the Wildcats and he went all seven innings. Schat pitched a gem of a game giving up zero runs on only three hits. He only walked one batter while striking out six.

In fact, Schat didn't give up a hit until the bottom of the fourth when he gave up a one out single and the runner advanced to second on a ground out.

Schat gave up a double in the sixth inning and a double in the seventh inning with no runner ever reaching past second base. All three hits the runners were stranded at second.

Ukiah will next face Marin Catholic on Saturday, May 21 at 1 p.m. The game will be played at Marin Catholic. Marin Catholic is the number one seed and advanced to face Ukiah after defeating the number 16 seed Washington, 5-2.

The winner will take on the winner of Casa Grande/northgate in the semi finals on May 25.