ELLSWORTH, Maine — The George Stevens Academy baseball team traditionally has been a safe bet to make a deep postseason run each year under longtime head coach Dan Kane.
Add in a nucleus of players riding the momentum of state championship success on the basketball court last winter, and the sky may be the limit this spring for the Blue Hill-based Eagles.
“A lot of the same guys are here, so I think we’re all excited to go,” said junior Beckett Slayton, who along with Bangor Daily News All-Maine guard Taylor Schildroth, fellow sophomore Stefan Simmons and senior Dakota Chipman are starting on the baseball team after contributing to GSA’s first Class C state title in basketball since 2003.
“We miss playing basketball, but we’ve turned our attention to this,” Slayton added. “I think the biggest thing we’ve noticed is the leadership carrying over with Taylor and Stefan and Dakota and myself. It’s great to have that experience.”
Slayton showed no signs of his limited varsity pitching experience in Thursday’s road test against Ellsworth. He limited the Class B foe to two baserunners and one hit as GSA earned its second straight 10-0, five-inning victory.
The left-hander required just 45 pitches to subdue Ellsworth, with a one-out ground single up the middle by Zach McGraw with one out in the bottom of the fifth breaking up his no-hit bid.
Slayton followed Simmons’ five-inning one-hitter against Sumner of East Sullivan in the team’s season opener on Tuesday by striking out four batters, walking no one and inducing seven fly-ball outs.
His only three-ball count came to the first batter he faced in the game.
“He threw a lot of first-pitch strikes and kept them off balance,” said Kane, who will be inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame in July. “He threw enough curveballs and he threw enough changeups to get them out in front and get a lot of fly-ball outs today. The outfield did a great job out there.
“Beckett’s a competitor, and him being a lefty helps slow down the running game a little bit. He just did a great job.”
George Stevens (2-0) created a variety of ways to score, including deep doubles to left field in the second inning by Jake Keenan and Schildroth that were the bookends to a four-run uprising that also included an RBI single by Simmons and back-to-back, run-scoring, suicide squeeze bunts by Gage Clapp and Tyler Snow.
“We’re still a team that’s trying to find our offense,” said Kane, “so we do put a lot of pressure on teams with the running game or a bunt game just trying to create opportunities.
“We’ve been working a lot on our bunting trying to improve that. I’m not one that likes to necessarily bunt a lot, but the way it’s working with this team we will bunt some.”
GSA added three more runs off Ellsworth left-hander Nick Bagley in the third to make it 7-0, then extended the lead to double digits in the top of the fifth. That three-run rally featured a two-strike, two-run single to right by Clapp.
Clapp finished with three RBIs while Simmons and Marshal Lebel each singled twice among GSA’s nine hits.
Ellsworth, making its season debut, may have experienced some opening-game jitters, particularly on defense where five errors and two balks helped lead to its demise.
“I expected a tighter game than that and without a doubt when we play Ellsworth again it will be a much tighter game,” Kane said. “They’re a good club, they’re a young club and this is their first game of the season. They’re going to improve.”
