Eels keep rolling, hand Clovers first loss in tight contest

CLOVERDALE – It was a great night for baseball at Cloverdale High School Thursday evening.

The visiting Clay City Eels came to town and had fight, scratch and claw to get out of there with a 3-1 victory over the Clovers, scoring two runs in the first and keeping the Clover bats at bay to improve to 4-0 on the season as the loss dropped the Clovers to 2-1. The quality of play was exceptional on both sides of the diamond.

“We were coming off the big win against Northview and thinking about beating a good 3A team. This team (Cloverdale) is a scrappy, tough team and we were able to get the win,” Clay City head coach Larry Shaw said.

The Eels out hit the Clovers 12-5, but several sterling fielding plays and key outs kept Clay City from garnering any more than three runs on the night. Clay City had bases loaded in three different innings but managed only three runs as Cloverdale battled. Eels starting pitcher Trey Dayhoff had 11 strikeouts in his five innings on the mound to get the win with Brody Shaw closing the game in the last two innings.

“Trey did a really good job on the mound. His arm got a little tired and Brody closed it out for us,” Shaw said.

The Eels looked to get started early as they loaded the bases in the first inning and picked up a run on a groundout by Noah Atkinson while a single by Colin Dryer plated Zain Keller as the Eels had a quick 2-0 lead. The Clovers cut the gap in half in the bottom of the first as Mcguire Lee smacked a double that scored Levi Hilton to end the first with Eels leading 2-1.

“This group is getting confident. We have had two games where we scored a lot, but tonight we had to fight and we did,” Cloverdale head coach Charlie Lee said.

Clay City loaded the bases again in the third inning and Keller scored on a bases loaded walk by Logan Stoelting to add an insurance run, but Layton Allen battled on the mound for the Clovers, picking up a strikeout and forced a ground ball back to the mound to end the threat with minimal damage. Clay City led 3-1 heading into the bottom of the third inning.

Both pitchers kept the bats quiet from for the next few innings, with the Eels switching pitchers to Shaw, but the Clovers did not mount much of an offensive attack as the Eel pitchers combined for 14 strikeouts.

Clay City looked to break the game open in the top of the seventh inning as they loaded the bases on three-straight singles to open the inning, but defense came to the rescue as the Clover outfield made two key plays surrounding an Allen strikeout and Cloverdale had a chance entering the final half inning.

“I thought Layton pitched really well and we made the plays that we needed to,” Lee said.

The Clovers did get a runner on base in that final inning but could not move him around and set the score for the final at 3-1.

Clay City was led in the game by Atkinson who went 2-of-4 with an RBI. Dayhoff and Keller each had three hits while Wyatt Adams with a double.

“We’ve got Sullivan coming up. We need to keep playing hard and that is going to be a tough one with all they have going on down there,” Shaw said.

The Clovers were led offensively by Lee who picked up two hits including a double, while Landon Duncan also had a pair of hits.

“We talked about fundamental plays. Those plays lead to good plays, which leads to great things happening,” Lee said about his young squad.

Clay City 201 000 0 — 3 12 1

Cloverdale 100 000 0 — 1 5 1

WP – Johnson

LP – Allen

2B – Adams (CC), Lee (CHS)

RBI – Atkinson, Dryer, Stoelting (CC), Lee (CHS)