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Dragons rally past Rancho behind soph Cole, nipped by Ukiah in Casa’s rain-altered tourney

 

After a series of washouts, the Sonoma Valley High School varsity baseball boys finally saw some diamond action in Sonoma County League rival Casa Grande’s rain-altered annual Adam Westcott Memorial Tournament, which was moved from the Petaluma to Cardinal Newman’s all-weather field in Santa Rosa.

On Monday, the Dragons battled rain, hail, and a strong foe in defending North Bay League champion Rancho Cotate and rode the arm and bat of southpaw sophomore Brennan Cole to a dramatic 5-4 victory on Cole’s game-winning RBI-single in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Joining winning-pitcher Cole with two-hit games for Sonoma were seniors Kevin Deely and Sean Daly, and juniors Will Rose and Sam Morgan.

In their second tournament game yesterday, the Dragons faced another solid NBL opponent in Ukiah and had the tables turned on them.

Leading 3-0 behind their pitching ace Sam Alton, Sonoma ended up being caught and passed by committing costly errors, stranding runners on the bases, especially at third, and eventually yielding four unearned runs which enabled the Wildcats to pull-out a 4-3 win.

Alton was unfortunate in losing a complete-game six-hitter, yielding no earned runs, while striking out eight and walking only one.

Sonoma (3-3) was paced by hot-hitting Deely’s three-for-four.