Baseball: Douglas holds on for win over Damonte Ranch

After spotting the Damonte Ranch baseball team a two-run lead in the first inning, Douglas sophomore Kameron VanWinkle settled down to toss a complete-game win in a non-league matchup between two Sierra League heavyeights Friday afternoon.

VanWinkle struck out four and walked two for the Tigers to help Douglas to a 7-5 win in the Mike Bearman Memorial Tournament at Damonte Ranch.

The win came after a 7-3 loss to Santa Clara, Calif., earlier in the day and helped propel the Tigers into Saturday's tournament championship game at 4 p.m.

"This was a good early-season win," Douglas coach John Glover said. "I think after losing this morning, we needed to bounce back. They swung the bats a lot better this afternoon and that was nice to see."

VanWinkle's performance was key because it helped the Tigers save what is left of its pitching staff for Saturday's game.

"He stayed under 100 pitches in a seven-inning game, which is really tough to do for a high school kid," Glover said. "We're excited to see that early in the year from him. He's going to have to pitch a lot for us this year. He did a great job today and that gets us into tomorrow with a little bit of pitching left. It was huge."

VanWinkle had to work to wrap up the game on the mound, hitting the first batter of the seventh with a pitch and surrendering a one-out single that put runners on first and second. A double and a sacrifice fly brought two runs across and Damonte's top hitter, Cody Stevens to the plate with Douglas leading 7-5.

"I ran down to (pitching) coach (Rick) Kester and we talked about intentionally walking Stevens," Glover said. "We didn't want to put the tying run on base with the winning run at the plate so we just pitched to him. It was just one of those things.

"We know he is one of the best hitters in the Northern 4A and he had us concerned there but Kameron came through."

VanWinkle worked the count to 2-2 before inducing a slow-bouncer back to the mound, which he fired to first baseman Tyler Hoelzen to end the game.

Douglas got on the board in the top of the first when left fielder Tyler May led the game off with a single to right and center fielder Tanner Thomas followed with a double to deep center that brought May home.

Damonte answered with a three-run bottom half but Douglas slowly chipped away at the scoreboard with a run-scoring fielder's choice from Tim Rudnick in the top of the third and a pair of run-scoring singles from Shane Fencl and May in the top of the fourth.

Douglas added a run when Fencl doubled to left in the top of the sixth to bring Troy Torres home.

The Tigers put their two finals runs, which ended up being game-deciders, across in the top of the seventh when Danny King singled through the middle to bring Beau Davis home and Tanner Thomas drew a bases-loaded walk to bring Torres home.

Torres went 3-for-3 with a triple, Davis went 2-for-4, Fencl went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs, May was 2-for-3 with an RBI and Hoelzen and VanWinkle each doubled.

Douglas improved to 3-1 on the year with the win.