LINCOLN, Maine — Head baseball coaches Jim Thibodeau and Dave Hainer both came into Thursday afternoon’s season-opening doubleheader with a few questions they hoped to have answers for.
And even though Hainer’s Mattanawcook Academy Lynx left the field with a sweep after 4-3 and 7-6 victories, both he and his Caribou counterpart came away with reasons for optimism.
“We certainly wish we could have come away with one of those games, but this is one of those times where you feel like you have a reason to feel good just the same,” said Thibodeau.
That’s because Thibodeau’s very young team still gave the veteran, experienced Lynx all they could handle.
“I think they’re pretty solid,” said Hainer. “They may be young, but I think before the year’s out, they’ll win some ballgames.”
In the first game, the 2-0 Lynx drew first blood with a run in the first via a hit batter and two singles, but Caribou tied it with a run in the second.
The game was tight throughout despite a 9-3 hits advantage for MA, largely because of four Lynx errors. Caribou went ahead 2-1 with a run in the third without a hit or walk.
“Of course I was getting frustrated, but you can’t give up on our team,” said MA starting pitcher Tyler Tash, who also did his part offensively with two singles. “You just have to stick with it, get first-pitch strikes, and try to fool them.”
Tash went almost exclusively with fastballs and curves while escaping a few jams. His only 1-2-3 innings came in the first and seventh.
Caribou took a 3-2 lead in the fifth with a two-out single by Cameron Anderson, a stolen base, and an infield throwing error, but the Lynx finished with a flair.
Leadoff hitter Stefano Bottarelli (two singles) reached base for the fourth time in four at-bats with a one-out single to left. He went to second a two-out single to shallow right by Lance Bernier and scored on Ivan Voisine’s liner over the middle.
“Stefano came here as an exchange student from Italy and really answered our leadoff spot questions,” said Hainer.
Ethan White then drilled a first-pitch fastball to left center that squeezed out of the left fielder’s glove, allowing Bernier to score the winning run.
The second game looked like a laugher early as MA hitters battered Caribou starter Cameron Anderson for four hits in the third and scored five runs to take a 6-0 lead. The big hit came off the bat of Voisine, who blasted a fastball to left center for a three-run homer.
Caribou chipped for two runs in the fourth off a Chad Caverhill leadoff double, Anderson single, an Ethan McDuffie sacrifice fly, and RBI groundout.
The Vikings tied it up in the sixth with four hits and two MA errors. Caverhill hit another leadoff double, Anderson and McDuffie hit back-to-back RBI singles, and Ted Walker belted an RBI triple to right center. Walker ran into the first out and took the tying run off the bases on a grounder to third, but the Vikings managed to tie it anyway as Royce Landeen’s grounder went through the second baseman and right fielder, to put runners at second and third before Caleb Chapman hit an RBI groundout.
That set the stage for another dramatic Lynx win.
Chase Vicaire reached on a fielder’s choice and Trevor Tash followed with a one-out single before Mike Thibodeau, who entered the game in the sixth to catch, drilled the first pitch he saw to right to score Vicaire with the winning run.
Bottarelli got the win with two innings of one-hit relief.
“He answered another question for us by coming in and pitching solid relief for us,” Hainer said. He’s not overpowering, but he throws strikes and that’s all you want from a reliever.”
Thibodeau was still happy despite the sweep.
“The guys fought back and we got a positive attitude going and scored some runs,” he said. “And I didn’t expect a lot having an entirely new pitching staff, but I got a lot, and it came against a good, veteran team.”