NCS baseball: Montgomery trounces Petaluma 10-1

Montgomery pitchers Nick Smith and Colin Prince combined to hold the Petaluma bats in check and the visiting Vikings scored a 10-1 victory over the Trojans Wednesday in opening round NCS Division 2 baseball action.

Smith started and didn’t allow a run in four innings while Prince finished up. Petaluma wound up with six hits compared with 14 by Montgomery.

The two pitchers also enjoyed good days with the bat. Smith had three hits, including a double and two RBIs. Prince had a single, double and three runs batted in.

Coach Zac Ward said the plan was to split the pitching duties, and both will be available for Friday’s second-round game at Marin Catholic.

“I walked three and I’m never happy when I do that,” Smith said. “Overall, I did OK. Most of the time I was getting my fastball over the plate early in counts and I’m effective when I do that.”

At the plate, Smith said he was seeing the ball well.

“I stayed inside the ball,” the junior said. “I was happy with my hitting.”

Smith said even though his team came into the game with a losing record (11-14), the Vikings were a confident group.

“Early in the season we were losing close games,” he said. “Recently, we’ve been winning those kind of games. We’ve been playing good ball.”

Ward praised his team for discipline at the plate and execution.

In addition to Smith and Prince, other Vikings with multiple hits were: Cody Lyons (3 for 4), Blake McDonald (3 for 4, two RBIs) and Jack Stelzner (2 for 3, RBI).

For Petaluma (16-10), Luke Wheeless had three hits and Connor Richardson contributed two.

“Montgomery did everything well,” Trojans coach Paul Cochrun said. “Their pitchers were effective and handled our hitters.”

DRAKE 6, ?SONOMA VALLEY 0

It was a 1-0 game through four innings and then the home team struck for three runs in the fifth and two in the sixth to win the Division 3 game played in San Anselmo.

“I thought we were outplayed from the beginning,” Dragons coach Don Lyons said.

Winning pitcher Nick Roth allowed two hits, one each by Mac Scott and Nico DeTorres.

The Dragons conclude the year 14-13 while Drake is now 15-11.

NORTHGATE 7, ?UKIAH 1

The Wildcats committed five errors in the Division 2 game and managed only five hits as their season ended on a sour note.

“We didn’t play disciplined baseball, we didn’t play good baseball,” coach Stephen Summers said.

The score was 2-0 after five innings, but then Northgate scored three in the sixth and two more in the seventh to put the game out of reach.

Devin Murtha was the winning pitcher and Devin Kirby took the loss.

Aiden Vannucci collected two of Ukiah’s hits.

The Wildcats wind up?13-12 while Northgate plays on at 17-7.

In a Division 2 softball game Wednesday:

MONTGOMERY 4, ?LAS LOMAS 3

The Vikings scored all their runs in the first inning and then held on to defeat the visitors from Walnut Creek.

The Knights did all their scoring in the fifth.

Sierra Shanoff and Olivia Gabriel had doubles in the first and Anna Zoia-Buescher started things off with a single. Las Lomas helped by committing two errors.

Both schools had plenty of scoring opportunities and each left 10 runners on base.

Jessica Valencia was the winning pitcher with relief help from Zoia-Buescher. The sophomore struck out five batters in 21/3 innings of work.

“We didn’t have good energy after the first inning,” coach Mike Malvino said. “We went kind of flat.”

The Vikings will visit Rancho Cotate in the second round on Saturday. The Vikings own two victories this month over the Cougars.

See box scores for select NCS baseball and softball games on page C7.