The Ellsworth High School baseball team erupted for 10 hits during a 10-0 victory at previously unbeaten Hermon on Thursday, and that may be a bad omen for rival Class B North teams seeking to unseat the Eagles from the top of the Heal point standings.
At 6-0, coach Dan Curtis’ club is now the only remaining undefeated team in the division despite a recent three-game stretch when it mustered just three hits combined but used its own pitching might, stellar defense and timely offense to win all three contests.
“We’re undefeated but it’s been a slow start still with our bats,” senior second baseman Dan Howie said after Tuesday’s 1-0 victory over Bucksport. “We’ve still yet to get in stride.”
Part of Ellsworth’s offensive challenge has been a string of opposing staff aces the Eagles have faced in its narrow victories over John Bapst of Bangor, Old Town and Bucksport that preceded the Eagles’ five-inning win at Hermon.
John Bapst’s Allen Wheaton combined with reliever Sam Bay to no-hit the Eagles, but Ellsworth scored two seventh-inning runs to edge the Crusaders 3-2.
Then Old Town lefthander Gabe Gifford of Old Town allowed just one hit over 6 ⅔ innings before reaching the 110-pitch limit, and Ellsworth went on to score twice in the top of the eighth inning for a 2-0 road victory over the defending Class B state champion Coyotes.
Bucksport righty Ty Giberson followed up with a complete-game two-hitter, but Howie hit a leadoff single in the bottom of the third inning and came around to score an unearned run that was just enough to complement errorless defense and senior righthander Hunter Curtis’ complete-game seven-hitter.
“We’d seen three great pitchers in those three games, and hopefully that helps us moving forward,” Curtis said after his first pitching start of the spring, a debut that included 11 strikeouts and no walks.
Ellsworth boasts its own big three on the mound in Curtis and classmates Craig Burnett and David Baugh, a starting tandem that has led the Eagles to five shutout victories in the team’s first six games while the Eagles have generated enough offense to outscore their opposition by a combined 37-2.
Burnett earned the pitching win against Hermon with a three-hit shutout that was supported by two hits apiece from Baugh, Howie and third baseman Michael Palmer, including Baugh’s two-run home run.
Ellsworth’s fast start marks the continuation of a strong stretch of recent baseball in the Hancock County shiretown.
The Eagles reached the Class B North championship game in 2018, then won its first state championship in 31 years in 2019.
After the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19, Ellsworth returned to the diamond last spring and reached the regional final before being shut out 6-0 by the University of Maine-bound Gifford and Old Town.
Ellsworth’s record since the start of the 2018 season is 56-9 heading into Monday’s home game against Old Town, and there are some similarities between this year’s club and the lead-up to the 2019 state championship edition.
Each team featured high-level starting pitching depth, with Curtis and Burnett leading the way this spring while Burnett’s older brother Matt and Conner Wagstaff serving as Ellsworth’s aces during its 19-1 campaign in 2019.
Both teams were coming off solid postseason runs a year earlier and returned six seniors, with Curtis — who plans to join older brother Jackson Curtis on the baseball team at Bangor’s Husson University this fall — and Michael Palmer among the seniors on this year’s squad that also were contributors as freshmen in 2019.
Curtis, Palmer, Craig Burnett, Baugh, Howie and catcher and leadoff hitter Brett Bragdon are the Eagles’ baseball Class of 2022.
“I’ve said that of all the boys I’ve coached, this is probably the most blue-collar group of kids I’ve had,” coach Curtis said. “They show up at practice, I lay it out and I don’t have to say another word the rest of the time. They’re good leaders, the best students, it’s a cakewalk being a coach when you’ve got kids like that. It’s going to be hard to replace the leadership next year. The talent keeps coming, but leadership is hard to create.”
Ellsworth’s baseball team also features several key players from the Eagles’ basketball program, which last winter won its first 22 games to capture the Class B North championship before falling to Yarmouth in the state final 59-52 in overtime.
“It’s kind of the same thing as the basketball situation,” said Hunter Curtis, a finalist for the statewide Mr. Basketball award this past season. “Last year we were young and super inexperienced. This year we’ve come in and have a little bit of experience from our playoff run last year and we’re looking to do good things.”
