BRISTOL, Connecticut — Coffee News of Bangor American Legion coach Dave Morris was to the point: “This just wasn’t our day.”
Upper Deck of Cumberland, Rhode Island, scored five times in the first two innings and cruised to an 8-2 opening-day win over the Comrades in the Northeast Regional American Legion tournament at historic Muzzy Field on Wednesday.
With the loss, Bangor will play in the losers’ bracket round against Lowell, Massachusetts, Thursday in the second game of the morning doubleheader. Tourney host Seicheprey Post 2 shut out Lowell 1-0.
“You can’t give walks and hit batters at this level and hope to win,” said Morris, who saw his starter, Peter Kemble (4-2) walk two and hit three in a nightmarish 1⅔ innings before being lifted in favor of Nick Cowperthwaite.
Kemble walked Josh Brodeur and Sam Brito to start the game and both scored. Brodeur tallied the game’s first run when third baseman Andrew Hiller let Mason Palmeiri’s (2 for 4) ground ball go through him for an error. Brito scored on a base hit by Tyler Colabro (3 for 5).
The Rhode Island champs (24-3) got three more in the second. With one out, Kemble hit Jason Doris, shortstop Kyle Stevenson booted Brodeur’s ground ball — the Comrades had five errors — and Kemble hit Brito to load the bases.
Palmeiri singled home two runs, and Colabro knocked in another with a base hit. Just like that, Cumberland had a 5-0 lead.
Cowperthwaite brought order to the proceedings and kept Rhode Island off the board through the seventh inning, but Bangor could do little with pitcher Ryan O’Neil (8-0), who scattered eight hits but was tough in the clutch, stranding eight runners.
“Cowperthwaite did a good job; he held them and gave us a chance,” Morris said. “But we couldn’t put hits back to back. We had chances, but they played good defense.”
Bangor (19-9) got two runners on to open the fourth but got only one run on a sacrifice fly by Cowperthwaite. The Comrades had two on with one out in the seventh, but Cowperthwaite was thrown out at the plate by left fielder Brody Santilli as he tried to score from second on a hit by Ben Crichton.
“If we had gotten that run, it would have been 5-2 with the heart of the order coming up,” Morris said.
Cumberland salted the game away with three runs in the eighth on a two-run single by Palmeiri and an RBI groundout by Colabro. Bangor got a so-what run in the ninth on a two-out single by Crichton.
“It was nice to come out and score early like we did,” Cumberland coach Steve Reynolds Jr. said. “It gave O’Neill a lead, and he could pitch with confidence. But he’s been there all year for us. The walks they gave us will kill anybody and we made them pay for that. But that’s a helluva hitting team. You could just see that.
“They may be the best offensive team we’ve seen all season, which is more of a credit to Ryan for how he stopped them.”