The Woodland High School baseball team defended its home field and simultaneously kept its season alive thanks to a clutch 4-1 win over Lincoln High School in game two of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D5 semifinals Wednesday afternoon.

“The word for today was fight,” Wolves head coach Danny Eoff said. “We came out and threw strikes and made great plays, including Dylan Ramirez making another amazing diving catch. Cadotte made a diving catch and then threw a guy out at first base. We all battled from the opening pitch and had the energy. We didn’t want another team to come into our house and take us for granted. The win was awesome.”The No. 4-seeded Wolves (24-9, 15-6 Golden Empire League) came into game two at Clark Field after a close 7-5 game one loss to the No. 1-seeded Lincoln on Monday.

“The game one loss showed me that we can hang,” Eoff said. “We made a lot of mistakes, but hit their pitching and were still right there in the end. These guys know what they can achieve and bring a bit of an underdog attitude after we were counted out. We are not going to be intimidated.”

Before that, their playoff journey included a huge 15-5 win over No. 5 seed Linden last Thursday in the D5 quarterfinals and a 4-0 win over Marysville in the opening round back on May 6.

Game three will be right back at Lincoln High School on Thursday at 4 p.m.

Things stayed quite right up until the bottom of the fifth inning, where the Wolves finally woke up to the tune of 4 runs.

“We didn’t have a bunch of hits or anything,” Eoff admitted. “We just wanted to execute and put pressure on them, and it led to a few bobbled balls.”

Lincoln responded with a run in the top of the sixth to make it 4-1, but that would be all they would get on freshman starting pitcher Riley Salvemini, who pitched a 7-inning gem, striking out 7 batters, only allowing 1 earned run on 5 hits.

At the plate, Salvemini contributed with 1 RBI, 1 hit, and 1 run. Freshman Carlos Vazquez and sophomore PJ Pinegar had the other 2 RBIs of the game. Senior Joseph Cadotte and freshman Cohen Dwyer had a game-high 2 hits each. Dwyer also scored a run alongside freshman Jesus Cosio and sophomore Ruger Hayes.

Game three is set for Thursday at 4 p.m. at Lincoln High School. The results from that game were not yet available before the print deadline.

“We want to keep it going,” Eoff said. “We are playing to our strengths and executing by putting the ball in play, throwing strikes, making plays, and having a chip on our shoulder. We know both of their big pitchers are done, so it’s going to be a bullpen matchup, and I think we can get them.”