ORONO, Maine — George Stevens Academy’s Payson Allen didn’t start Tuesday’s Class C North game against Orono, but the junior outfielder played a major role in ending it.
Allen’s bases-loaded single through a drawn-in infield in the the eighth inning snapped a 2-2 tie and helped the Eagles remain undefeated with a 5-2 triumph at wind-swept Mahaney Diamond on the University of Maine campus.
The Eagles had notched a 9-8, nine-inning triumph in the teams’ April 29 meeting.
George Stevens Academy (8-0) was down to their last strike in the seventh inning, but a two-out infield error allowed the tying run to score and force extra innings.
Orono (7-3) had its five-game winning streak snapped.
The game featured a pitching duel between Orono senior right-hander Jackson Coutts and GSA senior lefty Beckett Slayton, neither of whom was involved in the decision.
The hard-throwing Coutts went seven innings, allowing three hits and no earned runs with 11 strikeouts and four walks. He threw 105 pitches, 72 for strikes.
Slayton tossed six innings of four-hit, two-run ball with eight strikeouts and two walks. He threw 91 pitches, 65 for strikes.
Evan Kenefic replaced Coutts at the outset of the eighth inning as Coutts was five pitches shy of reaching the maximum 95 pitches allowed this season. Jake Keenan greeted Kenefic with his third sharply-hit single of the game.
“I had hit off (Kenefic) before and I watched him warming up. I had him timed up pretty well,” said Keenan.
Relief winner Stefan Simmons followed with a line-drive single to left-center, then Marshal Lebel topped a slow roller down the third-base line for an infield hit that loaded the bases.
Allen, who had bounced out as a pinch-hitter in the sixth inning, grounded a single past the dive of third baseman Connor Robertson and a second run scored when the left fielder misplayed the ball.
“Coach (Dan Kane) told me I had to put my bat on the ball and get the runs in if I could and that’s what I did. He threw me a high fastball right down the middle and that’s what I like,” said Allen, whose hit was his third in only five at-bats this spring.
“He has been slowly picking up the pace a little bit. He has been swinging the bat pretty well lately,” said Kane.
Ethan Vinall delivered the final run with a groundout.
Vinall had scored the tying run in the seventh when he drew a one-out walk, stole second and raced home when Taylor Schildroth’s one-hop grounder to first glanced off the first baseman’s glove and got behind him.
Schildroth had fouled off a pair of tough 1-2 pitches from Coutts before hitting his grounder to first.
“I was just scrapping and hoping for something good. I didn’t hit the ball where I wanted to, but I got fortunate,” said Schildroth.
“That was a tough at-bat,” said Kane. “He fouled off a good fastball over his head to extend the at-bat. He put the ball in play and we caught a break.”
GSA took a 1-0 lead in the third when Vinall walked, stole second, continued to third on an error and scored on Schildroth’s groundout.
Orono tied it in the third when Nate Desisto pulled a long triple down the right-field line and Coutts ripped an opposite-field double to left-center.
The Riots took the lead in the fifth on Desisto’s single into short right, two walks and Connor McCluskey’s perfectly executed squeeze bunt down the first-base line.
Keenan was the only repeat hitter for GSA and Simmons went two innings for the win, allowing three hits with four strikeouts and no walks. He got a strikeout with the potential winning run at third and two outs in the seventh.
Desisto and Coutts were Orono’s repeat hitters.
“When you play GSA, you have to play almost perfect,” said Orono coach Don Joseph. “We had some chances earlier in the game that we should have scored some runs on.”
Orono had loaded the bases with one out in the first and failed to score.