Heading into Tuesday’s baseball showdown against Hampden Academy at Mahaney Diamond in Orono, Brewer shortstop and leadoff hitter Evan Nadeau had just a pair of hits in five games.
The senior tallied three in the Witches’ 9-1 victory and also notched two runs.
“Not the best start to the season for me, but I’ll take those three today,” said Nadeau, who went 3-4 on the day. “I felt like my hardest hit ball was the one I got out, but sometimes that’s the way it goes in baseball. But it’s good to get a confidence booster, and hopefully we can keep it rolling.”
Brewer (6-0) coach Dana Corey said Nadeau is the emotional leader of the group.
“With his speed it’s huge,” Corey said. “We can do a lot of things. We can steal, hit and run with him, and the other thing is he’s the leader of the team as far as energy goes. When he gets going the rest of the guys go.”
Nadeau led the game off with a single, but Brewer went scoreless in the first.
In the second inning, Kaiden Morin hit a one-out double and was brought home by a single from Rowan Valley to give the Witches an early 1-0 lead.
On the mound for Brewer was Grady Vanidestine, who has been dominant all season. The junior lefty entered the game with an earned run average of one and continued his successful campaign on Tuesday with a seven-inning, one-run showing with four strikeouts.
“They have a lot of confidence he’ll throw strikes,” Corey said. “He hasn’t walked a lot of guys the last couple outings, and so he gets in the zone and the ball is in play. Then the defense stays on their toes and it helps. We have a lot of confidence in him.”
Vanidestine only allowed three base runners in the first four innings, one being a single to right field by Hampden (3-2) pitcher Collin Peckham.
Peckham got out of a jam on the mound in the second but found himself in another in the third.
Nadeau led the third off again with another single into center field, followed by Vanidestine being hit by a pitch. Jed Gilpatrick reached on an error to load the bases for Noah Tibbetts, who also reached on an error by the catcher who dropped a throw home that would have given Hampden an forced out but instead allowed Nadeau to score and double Brewer’s lead.
Two batters later, Valley singled into left-center that drove in two more runs giving Brewer a 4-0 lead.
“It is definitely our best hitting game, and we hit the ball hard,” Corey said. “We had a lot of hard balls hit, and they made some plays on some, but the thing is if you put the ball in play then good things can happen.”
Peckham continued to throw hard and throw strikes, but in the fourth inning Brewer tacked on three more runs from Anderson Clifford, Nadeau and Vanidestine. The Witches finished with 13 hits on the night.
Logan Burns led the fifth inning off for the Broncos trailing by seven and reached base after working Vanidestine’s only walk of the game. A single from both Kaysen Wildman set up an RBI single from Gavin Munyuk into right field. The throw home got Wildman at home to stop a second run from coming in, but the Broncos were on the board, 7-1.
Vanidestine led off the sixth inning with a single, and two batters later Tibbetts joined the base paths with a walk. Three batters later, Logan Littlefield singled home both runners to put Brewer ahead 9-1.
“The defense has been solid, and you can always improve it, but I will say today our hitting today really came through,” Nadeau said. “Today, to have 13 hits and nine runs, we’ve been working for this. We know we can do this, so it was good to finally see it.”
Lorenzo led Hampden with two singles.