CLEAR LAKE – Sixth-ranked (Class 2A) Clear Lake jumped on Webster City early and then fended off a late surge by the visitors to claim a North Central Conference baseball victory here Friday night.

The Lions (22-10, 9-2 NCC), who sit tied with Humboldt atop the league standings, plated seven runs in the first inning in their 8-6 victory over the Lynx (7-13, 5-7 NCC).

“I’ll give Clear Lake a lot of credit. They had a confidence and a readiness to play from the moment they hit the field for warm-ups that we did not match,” WCHS head coach Mark Fisher said. “With that said, I thought we did a great job of settling in after the first inning and only allowed one run the rest of the game.”

Senior pitcher Daniel Halko, who was the architect of the Lynx 7-3 win over Clear Lake last month, suffered the loss on the hill. He worked five innings and scattered 12 hits with three walks and six strikeouts.

Collin Oswald came on to work the sixth frame for WCHS.

The Lynx finished with five hits off the Lions’ pitching trio of Ethan McHenry, Cooper Merrill and Brock Adams. Noah McKinney went 2-for-4 out of the No. 2 spot in the lineup. Cole Reigelsberger smacked a double, while Ty Schnathorst and Jordan Tanner both singled.

Reigelsberger and Dylan Steen both drove in two runs. Jordan Moen and Oswald added one RBI.

Trailing 8-0, WCHS rattled off six runs in the sixth inning to jump right back into contention. But Adams, who hadn’t been on the mound in three weeks, took over in the seventh and collected the save.

“I’m not a moral victory in a loss kind of guy, I’m just not, but I do think we learned some things and grew up a little bit,” Fisher said. “As always though, we need to carry those over into this week.”

Mitch Keeren paced Clear Lake with a 3-for-4 performance in the batter’s box. Adams, Parker Truesdell and Jacob Hogan all smacked two hits.

WCHS will travel east this evening to take on Iowa Falls-Alden in Iowa Falls at 7:15 p.m.