Jefferson High School junior Andrew Engle pitches to a Broadfording Christian Academy player, at Sager Field on Saturday. Courtesy photo

SHENANDOAH JUNCTION — Jefferson High School pitching and clearing skies were on display on Saturday, as the Cougars faced Broadfording Christian Academy in a doubleheader at well-manicured Sager Field.

In the opener, Jefferson would ride its one lone run and the strike-throwing effectiveness of Andrew Engle to a 1-0 victory, where Engle did not allow any walks nor any hit batsmen, while authoring his shutout. He struck out two and the Lions left six men on base against him.

Engle often retired the Lions on ground balls that his infielders fielded flawlessly, or quiet fly outs on routine plays. Only in the sixth inning did Broadfording manage to get more than one man on base. A base running gaffe by Antonio Dominguez ruined that scoring opportunity, when he was thrown out by shortstop Nayan Dominguez.

Jefferson’s lone run was counted, when Nayan Dominquez scored in the third inning on Serf Guerra’s RBI single with two outs.

Engle had the only run he would need, as he went along in control of the Lion offense, with his strike-throwing and his walk-free pace. In the aftermath of his shutout gem, Engle had limited the Lions to seven hits. He had fanned two and stranded six Broadfording runners.

Hefner had two of Jefferson’s seven hits and had reached base safely in all three of his plate appearances. Liam Healey went 2-for-3 and had a double.

Liam Sager nearly duplicated Engle’s pitching performance in the afternoon’s nightcap, a 4-1 win by the Cougars, when he relieved starter Easton Pruitt, who left with an apparent arm problem after seeing one batter in the second inning.

Jefferson had a 1-0 lead, courtesy of Hefner’s leadoff single in the first and Cole Smith’s RBI single.

Broadfording got its only run of the baseball-perfect afternoon, after Sager inherited a 3-1 count on Paul Bautisa and completed a walk that was charged to Pruitt.

With the game temporarily even at 1-1, the Cougars went ahead to stay in the second, when Jett Gross walked and advanced to third on consecutive walks to Hefner and Braedon Oviedo, which loaded the bases, before Gross scored the go-ahead run on a balk.

Sager protected the short lead he was given from then on. He continually peppered the strike zone with his deliveries and still had the same one-run lead in the Jefferson sixth, by inducing a game-long series of ground outs, routine fly outs and his three strikeouts. He got some insurance runs in the sixth, when Cole Smith and Liam Healey had singles and Blake Kutcher produced an RBI hit. Healey had also driven in a run.

Suddenly, a narrow one-run lead was now at three runs, as the Lions batted for the final time.

Two groundouts had Sager needing only one last out. He walked a man and surrendered a single before coaxing a soft infield grounder to second from Rayfa Gil for the final out.

Jefferson had moved its record to 11-1, virtue of its effective strike-throwing pitchers — Engle and Sager.