Cards cruise into quarterfinals with 11-0 win

Winning pitcher Wind drives in five runs, Ollenberger goes 3-for-3

ROHNERT PARK >> The Wind is blowing in the right direction for the Clear Lake High School baseball team after a dominating 11-0 victory in five innings against the Technology Titans on Tuesday afternoon in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division 5 playoffs at Rohnert Park.

Winning pitcher Greyson Wind combined with Hank Ollenberger on a one-hitter while also driving in five runs with a RBI grounder and a pair of two-run singles as Clear Lake (9-10) won its third straight game and now advances to the Division 5 quarterfinals Friday against The Bay School, a 6-1 winner over Upper Lake in another first-round game Tuesday.

That quarterfinal-round game begins at 5 p.m. at West Sunset Diamond in San Francisco. The Bay School is 18-3 overall, including non-league wins over Technology and Cloverdale this season.

“We did everything well (today),” Clear Lake head coach Brian Horne said. “It was great.”

The postseason victory was the first for a Cardinals baseball team since the 2015 club beat Stuart Hall of San Francisco 2-1 in the Division 5 quarterfinals. They lost 7-3 to Head-Royce in the semifinals, the team’s only setback in 27 games that season.

“The boys came out to play,” Horne said. “They were hungry and everything worked.”

That’s everything as in pitching, hitting and defense. Wind worked the first four innings for the victory and allowed Technology’s lone hit, an infield single between third base and shortstop in the bottom of the second inning. He struck out eight and walked four before giving way to Ollenberger, who worked a 1-2-3 fifth.

Clear Lake pounded out 10 hits, led by Ollenberger, Wind and Cody Hayes. Ollenberger went 3-for-3 with a walk and scored four times. He also had a double and two stolen bases. Wind finished 2-for-3 with his team-leading five RBIs and Cody Hayes went 2-for-4 with three RBIs. Jacob Horne added two more hits.

The Cardinals’ defense committed just one error, that coming in the bottom of the fifth long after the game had been decided.

Clear Lake scored twice in the top of the first and put the game away with three-run third, fourth and fifth innings.

Technology, the runner-up in the North Central League II this season, finishes the season 13-7.

While Clear Lake, the fourthplace team out of the NCL I, was technically the underdog for Tuesday’s game against the sixth-seeded Titans, Horne said the Cardinals were certainly prepared after facing the likes of Kelseyville, Fort Bragg and St. Helena during the NCL I race. All three of those teams are competing in the Division 4 playoffs.

“Those are some good teams,” Horne said.

If Clear Lake beats The Bay School on Friday, it advances to the Division 5 semifinals next Tuesday. The Cardinals weren’t the only NCL I school to pull off an “upset” in first-round play. The 10th-seeded Cloverdale Eagles beat No. 7 Sonoma Academy, the third-place team in the NCL II, 12-3. Cloverdale travels to No. 2 University (San Francisco) on Friday for its quarterfinal-round game.

Clear Lake and Cloverdale would meet in the semifinals at Cloverdale if both teams win Friday.

On the other side of the Division 5 bracket Tuesday, winners were No. 1 seed Head-Royce of Oakland, No. 8 Athenian of Danville, No. 4 St. Vincent of Petaluma and No. 5 Credo of Rohnert Park.