Newport
Newport pitchers walked 10 and hit five, but the Tigers still nearly won their opener before the Royals closed out their first victory after three season-opening losses.
French, who also plays some second base, came on in relief of starter Tyler Findley in the first inning and was still on the hill when the tense seventh inning came to a close.
French walked Newport’s Tyler Maheu to start the seventh with the Royals clinging to a 9-7 lead. Cody Turgeon followed with a liner that was speared at second by Mascoma’s Oscar Brueckner as Maheu broke on the play. Looking for the double play, the Royals’ throw to first base hit Maheu and rolled out of play, allowing the Newport baserunner to get to third.
French got a strikeout, but the Tigers’ Cam Ackerman kept the inning alive with a single to right. Dom Russell followed with a comebacker, but French threw the ball way over the first baseman’s head and Newport suddenly had the tying run at third and the winning run at second.
Brendon Halleck loaded the bases when he was hit by a pitch that the Tigers first thought was wild, denying Newport a potential tying run. Facing a 2-0 count to Kyle Fish, French got the Tiger batter to fly out to right to end the game.
“If we had lost today, it would have been my fault,” said Mascoma coach Guy Serviss, who blamed himself for not bunting with the bases loaded and nobody out in the sixth.
At that point, first-year Newport coach Jon Hamel moved Dawson Campbell from behind the plate to the mound. “I know Campbell throws real hard, and I should have bunted,” said Serviss.
He didn’t, and Campbell fanned the side. Campbell added two more strikeouts in the seventh for two innings of shutout relief that kept the Tigers in the game.
“I wouldn’t have slept well tonight if we had lost that game,” said Serviss.
Hamel might have had trouble sleeping after Monday as well, knowing the walks, hit batsmen and three errors enabled the Royals to get additional at-bats.
“Just to be in the game let alone, and possibly win it, would have been fantastic,” said Hamel, who was missing four starters to spring vacations. “We’ve just got to learn from this and move on. We have until Friday (and a game with Pelham) to get things straightened out.”
Newport went through three pitchers before getting to Campbell. Maheu started and was followed by C.J. Lawrence and Brandon Sondrini.
The game had an offensive start, with the teams tied 7-7 after two innings. At that point, someone yelled, “First one to 21 wins.”
Mascoma scored four times in the first and three times in the second. Mark Olsen had a two-run double for the Royals’ big blow in the first. Newport answered with six runs in the first, with a two-run double by Turgeon keying the rally. Mascoma took a 9-7 lead in the fourth on two bases-loaded walks.
While Newport is hosting Pelham on Friday, Mascoma will be at Fall Mountain.
Notes: There was a zany double play that might have gone unnoticed by the Mascoma bench in the fifth. With the Royals’ Anthony Sperry on first base, Ethan Brueckner hit a low liner to short that Fish went down for. Sperry thought the ball was caught and ran back to first where he was tagged out. Brueckner also thought it was caught and walked away. The home plate umpire ruled that the ball was trapped and that Brueckner gave himself up for the second out by departing the field.