Campolindo boys baseball beat Northgate with a score of 9-2, improving their DAL league record to 3-2 and overall record to 10-7.

Going into this game the Cougars had been struggling, losing two league games to a strong Clayton Valley team in the previous weeks. Oppositely, Northgate was coming off of a huge rival win against Las Lomas.

Stanford commit and pitcher freshman Graham Schlicht took the mound for Campolindo. He started off strong, forcing weak contact and getting two outs on five pitches, but soon ran into some command issues. He hit each of the next two batters, allowing Northgate to get an early scoring opportunity. After a quick mound visit, Schlicht took control again, striking out the next batter on five pitches.

The Cougs started off hot, with leftfield freshman Blake Robison drawing a walk on a full count, stealing second. Then, center fielder senior Nick Rogers hit a grounder into right field, sending Robison home from first. Clemson commit and catcher senior Hideki Prather did not waste any time to contribute, lining a first-pitch fastball into left, setting up first and second. After a fly out from senior Greg Palamountain, sophomore Miles Clayton blasted a hanging curveball all the way to the wall, knocking in Prather and Rogers and giving the Cougars a 3-0 lead. This early success came from working deep counts and taking advantage of mistake pitches.

“It was super important because not only does that get runs on the board, but that gets the pitch count up of the other team starter and gets him out of the game and good things happen when you get deep into teams, pitching rotations,” said junior Andy Moon.

Over the next few innings Schlicht got into a groove, commanding the strike zone with all three pitches and forcing weak contact. On top of this success on the pitching mound, Campolindo’s defense remained solid, not committing an error until the top of the fifth.

Campolindo’s offensive momentum slowed, however, only scoring one run over the next two innings: both from Palamountain doubling it down the line, scoring Rogers and giving the Cougs a 5-0 lead.

The Cougs were not yet satisfied and kept their foot on the gas, keeping the pressure on Northgate with senior Dylan Rusconi walking and then, with two outs, Prather doubled him in. Northgate dug themselves even deeper into the hole, committing another error on a Clayton grounder, scoring Prather, and extending the Cougar lead to 7.

After running into some trouble in the fifth inning, Schlicht retired the next 2 batters with ease, finishing his solid outing. In five innings, Schlicht only allowed one earned run on two hits, while striking out three.

After Schlicht’s solid performance, senior Adrian Blumberg came in to shut the door. Blumberg only allowed one hit over the next two innings along with tallying three strikeouts, closing out the game for a much needed Campolindo win.