BANGOR, Maine — The Bangor High School baseball team had six shutout victories in its last nine games last spring, including an 8-0 stifling of Windham in the Class A state final.
That pitching staff had similar success during the American Legion and Junior Legion seasons that followed last summer, capping off those schedules with shutout victories in the state championship games at each level.
Notice the trend there?
If first impressions are any indication, more of the same pitching may be forthcoming this spring.
Sophomore right-hander Peter Kemble and junior left-hander Trevor DeLaite combined Wednesday to allow just one infield hit and only two balls hit out of the infield as the Rams edged Hampden Academy 1-0 in a 1 hour, 24 minute Class A season opener at Husson University.
Kemble pitched to the minimum 15 batters over the first five innings of his first varsity start, allowing one infield hit with four strikeouts, a hit batter and no walks.
“I was just trying to throw a lot of strikes and let the defense do as much work as I could because we have a great defensive team,” Kemble said.
DeLaite, who figures to be the ace of the staff this spring with Justin Courtney having graduated to a spot in the University of Maine pitching rotation, then came on to strike out five of the six batters he faced in earning a two-inning save.
Neither DeLaite nor Kemble so much as reached a single three-ball count on any of the 21 batters he faced, and catcher Derek Fournier threw out both Hampden players to reach base when they tried to advance.
“We preach to the kids that if we don’t give up any runs, all we have to score is one to win,” Bangor coach Jeff Fahey said. “Obviously we hoped we’d get more than one today.”
That hope was quashed largely by Hampden junior right-hander Tommy Farrar, who yielded the game’s lone run on two hits over 5⅓ innings.
“He threw his fastball for strikes and attacked us, and it was hard seeing the ball at some points,” DeLaite said.
The teams combined for just one baserunner until Bangor’s third-year No. 9 batter, shortstop Kyle Stevenson, sharply singled off the glove of Broncos’ first baseman Jordan Dysart with one out in the bottom of the third.
Stevenson stole second base and went to third on a wild pitch before scoring on Jordan Derrah’s sacrifice fly to center field to give the Rams a 1-0 lead.
Coach McLean Poulin’s Hampden club, which does not have a senior on its roster, got its first baserunner when Casey Sudbeck was hit by a Kemble pitch with one out in the fourth, but Fournier cut down Sudbeck on an attempted steal of second base.
Bangor threatened again in the fourth, when Ben Crichton was hit by a pitch, stole second and reached third on a Sam Huston groundout.
But Farrar escaped, first with a strikeout and then as shortstop Ben Huston made a backhanded stab of a sharply hit grounder by Ryan Brookings and fired to first for the final out.
Cam Scott reached on an infield hit toward second base to end Kemble’s no-hit bid with one out in the fifth and reached second after an errant throw on the play.
But when Scott took off for third base on a subsequent pitch in the dirt, Fournier came up firing again and threw him out to end the threat.
