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LAKEPORT — Despite the best efforts of Upper Lake High School center fielder Tristin Rhodes, the Clear Lake Cardinals are headed to the North Coast Section Division 5 softball semifinals after beating the Cougars 8-2 in a fairly tense quarterfinal-round battle Friday afternoon in Lakeport.

The Cardinals (16-7) advance to the semifinals Tuesday against St. Helena (16-7) at St. Helena High School. First pitch is 7 p.m. St. Helena shut out South Fork 2-0 on Saturday night in St. Helena.

Clear Lake pulled away late against Upper Lake (11-8), snapping a 2-all tie with two runs in the bottom of the fourth, and putting the final touches on their victory in the sixth when Hailee Bussard clubbed a line drive home run to left field, a two-run shot.

Bussard just missed a grand slam in her previous bat, hitting a high flyball into deep center field where the 5-foot-4 Rhodes, her back pressed up against the fence, reached as high as she could and pulled the ball back into the field of play at the last second to end the bottom of the fourth. It was easily the defensive play of the game, perhaps the year.

“She told me she didn’t know if she could reach it,” Upper Lake head coach Nick Williamson said of Rhodes’ catch after talking to her about the play in the dugout. “It was a great inspirational play. It kept us in the game.

“She’s been a stud for us all season. She’s one of the hardest workers on the team,” he said of the junior.

“Their center fielder kept them in the game,” Clear Lake assistant coach Phil Psalmonds said of Rhodes’ solid work in center field where she handled all four of her chances cleanly, and two others, not counting the catch she made against Bussard, were tough plays.

Rhodes also had one of eight Upper Lake hits as the Cougars (11-8) out-hit the Cardinals nine to five, that after getting no hits against them in the season opener between the two teams way back in March when Lilianna Cruz threw a no-hitter in a 10-0 Clear Lake win.

That didn’t happen this time largely because Cruz, who is still recovering from an ankle injury she sustained earlier this month against Fort Bragg, didn’t make the start on Friday. Instead, Cruz, a hard-throwing left-hander, relieved winning pitcher Raina Clifton to start the fifth inning. Inheriting a 4-2 lead, the sophomore worked three scoreless innings of one-hit ball, striking out six and walking two, to register the save.

“She (Cruz) was fine, but we didn’t want to push her too much,” Clear Lake pitching coach Marci Psalmonds said when asked why the team’s ace didn’t make the start against Upper Lake. “We wanted to keep her as fresh as we could (for the semifinals).”

Clifton also wasn’t 100 percent, but the senior pitched four effective innings, allowing seven hits but walking none and striking out four.

“Clifton’s such a gamer,” Clear Lake head coach Scott Schaefers said. “She went out there and gave us everything she had.”

With the game locked up at two after Upper Lake scored single runs in the third and fourth innings to erase the 2-0 lead Clear Lake established in the bottom of the first, Clifton became the pitcher of record thanks to the two runs the Cardinals scored in the fourth.

Losing pitcher Nya Marcks, who threw a complete game and managed to keep the Cardinals off balance early in the game, hit Montana Wells with one out. Wells stole second and reached third when the Cougars booted Cruz’s grounder for an error. Marcks struck out Rubi Ford for the second out but then hit Amber Smart to load the bases. With Camrin Pivniska standing at the plate and taking a called first strike, Smart broke for second — even though the base was already occupied by a teammate — and Upper Lake fell for the bait, throwing the ball to first with Smart halfway to second. As that was happening, Wells broke for the plate and beat the throw home as Cruz and Smart moved up a base.

Pivniska drew a walk to reload the bases for Clifton, who became the third batter in the inning to be hit by a pitch, this one forcing in a run to make it 4-2.

Marcks allowed just one through the first four innings and still trailed, the result of three hit batsmen and four walks.

Even with the damage done in the bottom of the fourth, it could have been much, much worse had Rhodes not reeled in Bussard’s bid for a grand slam, which ended the inning and kept the Cougars in the game.

Cruz came on at that point and shut the Cougars down, striking out a pair of Upper Lake batters in each of her three innings. Upper Lake did make noise in the top of the sixth when Lexi Wurm worked a seven-pitch walk leading off the inning. Unfortunately for Wurm and the Cougars, the senior made a move toward second base with the ball already back in the pitcher’s circle. By rule, you have to advance and can’t retreat to first, which Wurm did, and she was called out.

That baserunning mistake hurt, and it proved even more costly when Paris Klier followed with a double — the only hit Cruz allowed in her three innings. Klier ended up at third because of an error on the play, but Cruz worked out of the mini-jam with back-to-back strikeouts, both on called third strikes.

After taking a 4-2 lead in the fourth, Clear Lake added a run in the fifth after two were out and the bases empty. Wells blooped a double into center field and scored on a solid Cruz single to center.

The Cardinals added three big insurance runs in the sixth — the final two on one swing of the bat. Denied a grand slam in the fourth, Bussard hit a laser beam that didn’t clear the fence in left by much, but it didn’t have to because there was no outfielder nearby to make a catch this time, so fast did the ball exit the field. Smart got the Cardinals going in the inning with a one-out double. She stole third and scored when the throw went off the third baseman’s glove for an error. Clifton walked with two outs and scored in front of Bussard’s home run.

Clear Lake went up 2-0 in the bottom of the first on a run-scoring two-base throwing error and a Clifton sacrifice fly.

Upper Lake cut the lead to 2-1 in the top of the third when Tristin Rhodes led off with a single to deep shortstop, stole second and continued to third base on a throwing error on the play. She raced home on a wild pitch.

The Cougars pulled even in the top of the top of the fourth. After Clifton struck out the first two batters in the inning, Nathaly Velsaso singled to right field and advanced to second when the outfielder misplayed the ball for an error. Ruby Wurm’s first-pitch single into left field scored Velasco.

Williamson was coaching his last game for the Cougars as he is moving to Missouri to be closer to his family once the school year ends. Under his leadership, the school had its best softball season in many years, earning a share of the North Central League II championship with a 7-5 win over Credo on Friday in the team’s regular-season finale.

“We have improved so much throughout the year,” Williamson said of the progress his team has made since being no-hit by Clear Lake in the season opener. “Beating Credo, that was a big game for us and we fought had today, we just didn’t get some breaks. I’m very proud of the girls. They gave it everything.”

Williamson said the team owe’s much of its success to the hard work of assistant coach Heather Wurm.

“She was a big part of it,” Williamson said.

So were a handful of Upper Lake’s seniors, including Lexi Wurm and Zoey Petrie (2-for-3), who doubled in each of her first two at-bats. Ruby Wurm also had two hits.

““I’ve enjoyed my time here,” Williamson said of his stay at Upper Lake. “I’m happy to go out on top as co-league champions.”

“Upper Lake was solid, they definitely improved since the last time we played. They’ve improved a lot,” Schaefers said. “They were a lot better hitters and a lot better defensively this time.”

If Clear Lake, the No. 3 seed in Division 5, draws No. 2 seed St. Helena in the semifinals, it will mark the third meeting this season between the two teams. They split their two league games, the Saints winning at Lakeport and the Cardinals winning at St. Helena.

“Both teams know what to expect,” assistant coach Phil Psalmonds said.

Clear Lake’s five hits were divided among five players. Clifton wasn’t one of them, but she still drove in two runs with her sacrifice fly in the first and being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the fourth. She also backed up Rhodes into deep center field with a flyball in the bottom of the third that looked like it might leave the field when it came off her bat.

While Rhodes home run-saving catch in the fourth was the defensive gem of the game, Clear Lake second baseman Grace Gomez came in a close second with her fully extended dive toward the right-field line to glove a popup off the bat of Lexi Wurm with Petrie breaking on contact from second base in the top of the third. Gomez not only saved a run with the catch, but she doubled up Petrie at second base to end the inning.

Both catchers — Clear Lake’s Bussard and Upper Lake’s Ruby Wurm — also threw out would-be basestealers during the game.

Marcks finished with two strikeouts and six walks plus the three hit batsmen.

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