BANGOR, Maine — Good teams find ways to win games even when they aren’t at their best if they also capitalize on opponents’ mistakes.
After scoring 46 runs in its first three games, the Bangor High School baseball team was held to just three hits by a trio of pitchers from Oakland’s Messalonskee High School at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor on Monday but the Rams rallied from a 4-2 deficit to carve out a 6-4 victory.
The Rams took advantage of an error to score three, two-out unearned runs in the fifth inning to take the lead for good and Hampden Academy transfer Nick Llerena tossed 2 ⅔ innings of one-hit shutout relief as Bangor remained undefeated in Class A North.
Messalonskee fell to 2-1.
Bangor was trailing 4-2 with two outs in the fifth inning when an infield error allowed Jonas Gilley to reach first safely.
Trey Tennett walked and Gavin Glanville-True pulled a ground ball single to right to score Gilley.
“It’s a big thing we talk about, two-out RBIs,” said senior center fielder Glanville-True. “That’s how games are won and lost. I just tried to do my job.”
Up until Glanville-True’s base hit, Bangor was just 1-for-8 with men on base and 1-for-7 with men in scoring position.
“I tried to stay with it the whole game, grinding out at-bats,” said Glanville-True.
Messalonskee reliever Dagen Gooding, who had relieved starter Fin Minkel in the fourth inning and pitched out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam, was then replaced by hard-throwing junior righty Sean Achorn.
Tennett and Glanville-True worked a double steal before Jacoby Harvey greeted Achorn with a slow bouncer to second and when the ball glanced off the glove of the hard-charging second baseman, both runners scored.
“Coach (David Morris) is always saying put the ball in play and good things will happen and it sure did right there,” said sophomore shortstop Harvey.
Bangor scratched out an insurance run in the sixth on two walks, a stolen base, a sacrifice bunt by Owen Glanville-True, Gavin’s junior brother, and a baserunning blunder that actually produced the run.
With runners at second and third and one out, Zac Cota squared around to bunt but didn’t bunt the ball. However, the runner on second ran to third, leaving two runners at the bag.
There was no one covering second so the third baseman waited until the second baseman got there and threw to second to try to nab the retreating runner. That allowed the runner from third to score.
Llerna came on in relief of starter Matt Turcotte in the fifth inning and got the final two outs of the inning, sandwiching them around a bloop run-scoring single to left center by Dagen Gooding.
He retired the side in order in the sixth and seventh innings to earn the win, striking out four of the six hitters.
“He came in and threw strikes. Nick Llerena had a great game for us,” said Bangor coach Morris. “He has done a great job. He has done everything we have asked of him.”
Llerena said he thought he threw “pretty well.
“I was just thinking about throwing strikes. If they hit the ball, it was going to go to one of our fielders and they would do the work,” said Llerena.
Bangor took a 1-0 lead on two walks and Tennett’s two-out ground ball single up the middle in the second inning off starter Minkel.
Messalonskee scored three times in the fourth inning on singles by Gooding and Finkel, a hit batsman and a two-out infield single by Peyton Kidd.
Matt Reardon jogged home from third for the third run of the inning when Kidd got picked off first and stayed in a rundown long enough to allow Reardon to cross the plate.
Harvey’s sacrifice fly to center in the bottom of the fourth cut the lead to 3-2 before Messalonskee answered with a run in the top of the fifth on a walk, a groundout and Gooding’s base hit.
Tennett had two singles for Bangor while Gooding and Minkel had two each for Messalonskee, which committed four errors compared to Bangor’s one.
Messalonskee senior first baseman Denny Martin saved at least two runs with a pair of nifty scoops on throws to him from his shortstop.
Morris was pleased to get the win, noting that his senior-laden team “showed a great deal of maturity” by not panicking when they fell behind and keeping their composure.
Bangor will now entertain Mt. Ararat ot Topsham on Wednesday at 4:30 in a rematch of last season’s Class B North championship game won by Mt. Ararat 4-3.
Messalonskee will visit Hampden Academy on Wednesday at 6.