Sierra got just one hit on Monday, which is one more than Ripon Christian tallied, as the Timberwolves clawed out a 2-1 non-league baseball win at Jack Thomson Stadium.

“This was not our best game, offensively,” Sierra coach Travis Thomson said. “Our

pitchers today, Wyatt (Bauer) and Collins (Schluer), did a fantastic job. Wyatt had three or four pitches working for a strike today and got ahead in a lot of counts and had eight strikeouts. Ripon Christian was pesky at the plate, and some of those weren’t easy outs.

“We made some big plays today to keep us on the right side of the score. I am hoping we don’t have to work that hard in the future to win games.”

Timberwolves catcher Rudy Barney helped preserve the win when he picked a runner off at third in the sixth inning with one out and nearly picked off a second one in the frame at first.

“We made a couple of nice plays defensively,” Thomson said. “That was a huge, huge pickoff. Rudy works on that, throwing the ball 90 feet, and that is something that as soon as the opportunity presents itself in the game, he is really aggressive on it.

“Rudy is a gamer. I think both of those runners — the one he got and the one he didn’t — they got a lazy with their base running, and Barney is so in tune with game that he picked up on it. That was the tying run at third with one out.”

Bauer started on the mound, striking out eight while allowing no hits through five innings. Schluer got the save, throwing two innings and striking out five with no hits.

“I felt really good today,” Bauer said. “My fast ball velocity wasn’t quite there, I wasn’t really feeling it today, but my off-speed was feeling pretty good. I got a couple of punch outs on those, and I was able to execute.”

Sierra (5-3) entered the fifth inning trailing 1-0. Barney reached to start the Timberwolves fifth on a two-base error and came in on a Troy Morrow single to tie the score at 1-1. Bauer was hit by a pitch for the second time, took second on Morrow’s single, took third when Ricardo Anaya’s sacrifice bunt was misplayed and came home on a wild pitch to put Sierra ahead 2-1.

“I have been working on it all last week to stay back and grab one the other way and it finally came through,” Morrow said. “And it came through when it mattered.”

Knights speedster Grant Sonke reached first on a strike-three wild pitch to start the game, stole second and third and scored when Ripon Christian (5-4) hit into a double play to put the Knights ahead 1-0. The Knights managed just two people into scoring position the rest of the way.

“Against a team this good, this is what we were looking for going into league with Mariposa this week,” Ripon Christian coach John de Visser said. “We have Mariposa now twice, and we got a lot of guys on the mound today that are going to see action throughout the year. Against a good team like this, I thought we handled ourselves pretty well, but we still have to get this defensive thing squared away. In games like this, one or two errors are going to cost you.

“The outfield play was fantastic, and the infield stuff we will clean up. Sierra is a good-pitching team with two really good throwers, and we are going to have to clean up our approach a bit. If we are going to see tough lefties like this going forward, we are going to have to clean things up.”

On Wednesday at 4 p.m. the Knights open Southern Athletic League play when they host Mariposa and the Timberwolves travel to Linden.