Ukiah spoils NCS showdown

Ukiah’s Wildcats spoiled a South County dream baseball showdown between Petaluma and Casa Grande on Saturday afternoon, defeating Petaluma’s Trojans, 6-2, in the quarterfinals of the North Coast Section Division 2 playoffs.

Casa Grande’s Gauchos did their part to set up the inter-city battle, riding the dominating pitching of Chris Joaquim to a 7-2 victory over Marin Catholic’s Wildcats.

The result of a mild spring afternoon of good baseball ended Petaluma’s first season under the coaching of Jim Selvitella with a 19-9 record, a second-place finish in the Sonoma County League at 10-2 and a 5-4 NCS victory over San Lorenzo.

Casa plays on

The North Bay League champion Gauchos, 23-4 for the season, are within two wins of accomplishing their ultimate goal - a North Coast Section championship. Between them and the section title game stand the spoiler Wildcats, now 17-9-1 for the season. The teams were to meet Wednesday in the semifinals at Casa Grande. Results of that game were not available at press time.

Joaquim was nearly perfect in five innings of complete control against Marin Catholic on Saturday afternoon on the Casa diamond.

Combining a blistering fastball with a batter-baffling off-speed pitch, he faced just three batters over the minimum through five innings.

A rare Casa error allowed a runner in the second. Joaquim issued his only walk in the fourth and he lost his no-hitter to a single in the fifth. That was it. Everything else was either a strikeout (five through five innings), a lazy pop or a grounder that was gobbled up by shortstop Hance Smith or second baseman Eddie Bermudez.

Marin Catholic got to reliever Nik Kamages for four hits and a couple of runs in the final two frames, but by then the Gauchos had put the game safely away with a five-run outburst in the fourth inning.

Casa’s first two batters gave it a run and a lead it never relinquished. Lead-off hitter Max Cerini lofted a fly over the right fielder’s head, moved up on a passed ball and galloped home on John Green’s single up the middle.

The Gauchos loaded the bases in the third when Cerini was hit by a pitch, Green shot his second consecutive single to left field and, after both runners had moved up on a wild pitch, Torkelson was waved to first on an intentional walk. The Gauchos got only one run on a sacrifice fly by Smith.

The four runners Casa Grande left stranded in the first three innings became irrelevant in the fourth when it scored five runs to turn the game one sided. Dylan Moore, Hayden Klemenok and Cerini contributed hits to the rally, and Torkelson crashed a line-drive sacrifice fly.

A key component of the rally were consecutive bunts by Bermudez and Klemenok, with the former safe on an error and the latter safe on a hustle hit.

Casa had eight hits in the game, more than enough for the dart-throwing Joaquim.

Errors cost Trojans

Key errors were factors in Petaluma’s final game of the season.

The Trojans, behind the pitching of Danny Marzo, breezed to a 2-0 lead through the game’s first three innings, with Logan Douglas and Bradley Smith providing RBIs.

Trojan troubles came in the fourth and fifth frames, when the Wildcats scored twice in the fourth and added three runs in the fifth. Errors contributed to both Ukiah rallies.

“Each out is valuable, you can’t give outs away,” said Selvitella. “The margin of error in the playoffs is so small that when you make a mistake, it really stands out.”

Petaluma touched Ukiah starting pitcher Karter Koch for six hits over the first five innings, but got nothing off relief pitcher Devin Kirby over the final two frames.

Despite the loss, Selvitella was pleased with the Trojan season.

“I’m proud of these guys. They battled all year and never gave up. It was a great year for us. The players learned a lot. They all grew together.

“The toughest part was waching the seniors play their last high school game.”

Collecting hits for Petaluma in their final game of the season were Sam Brown, Kempton Brandis, Porter Slate, Marzo, Nick Andrakin and Devin Gottschall.