Woodsville
Moore slammed a fastball into right field in the bottom of the eighth inning at the Woodsville Community Field, a 2-2 pitch from Moultonborough’s Connor Porusta with two outs, the game tied and the bases loaded with Engineers. Brandon Brown clapped his hands as he jogged home from third, sending Woodsville (3-0) home with the 14-13 win.
It was the second time in as many games that the Engineers required some offensive heroics. Moore was the hero on Friday against Profile, hitting a one-out single that scored Brown in a 3-2 win. On Monday, he did it again.
“I was just trying to protect the plate,” Moore said. “I had a pretty good idea it was going to drop.”
After the game, Woodsville’s players encouraged each other to “never give up.” Sounds like the kind of mantra a team can rally behind.
“It seems like every time we have an opportunity, Zach is up to bat,” said fourth-year Woodsville head coach Brent Cox, who noted that Moore had a chance to win the game with two outs and a runner on second in the seventh inning but struck out.
“I keep losing my hair; now I’m turning really gray,” Cox added. “But I’m telling you, if you want to watch a good game, come watch these guys to the very end. Don’t leave early.”
Added Woodsville pitcher Cooper Davidson: “That was intense. Honestly, in the third inning I didn’t think we could pull it off.”
It would have been easy to give up in the second inning on Monday against a Panther team seeing its first action outdoors this spring. Moultonborough head coach Todd Clifford said the tarp on his home field had only been removed on Friday and his team had not yet had time to practice outside.
Woodsville starting pitcher Seth Hannett struggled in his first outing of the season, giving up seven runs on four hits and five walks in 1⅓ innings. Hannett, a junior, threw 10 balls in his first 11 pitches against the Panthers, exiting the game having thrown 52 pitches with one strikeout.
Davidson entered the game in relief, giving up an RBI single to his first batter before extinguishing the next two to end the inning. Woodsville trailed, 8-2, headed to the bottom of the second.
“Every time Cooper takes the mound, it’s something special,” Cox said. “He doesn’t throw 100 miles an hour, he doesn’t have a ton of breaking stuff, but he throws strikes and he pounds the strike zone. In this division, sometimes it’s just what you need to do: Keep people off base with walks, and you’re in good shape.”
Travis Stoddard got Woodsville on the board in the bottom of the second with a two-RBI single that drove in Eric Thornton and Dakota Hernandez. Davidson added to it with a run in the third and scored again in the fifth to cut Moultonborough’s lead to 10-4.
Then the Engineers really got things going.
Davidson, Thornton and Moore delivered three straight hits with two outs in the sixth to cut the deficit to 10-7. In the seventh, a Davidson RBI single, a run-scoring error and Thornton’s RBI bloop double to plate Davidson from third — all with two outs — tied the game at 10-10.
The Panthers responded with three runs in the top of the eighth to rebuild a 13-10 lead, assisted by two Woodsville errors. But Billy Green, Hannett, Seanon May and Brown all answered with runs of their own on four walks and three hits to keep Woodsville undefeated.
Davidson pitched the final 6⅔ innings for the Engineers, allowing seven hits and five runs with five strikeouts. He also scored four runs on five hits. May scored three runs on four hits.
Moultonborough, which used three different pitchers, fell to 0-1.
“I think it’s our leadership (that makes us so confident),” Moore said. “We have four captains on the team. They’re all very motivated. They keep us in it, plus being loud in the dugout. It helps us build off of each other.”
Those four captains — Hannett, Stoddard, Davidson and May — each have a different quality, Cox said. It’s why he went with so many this season when, in years past, he’s gone with none. Their leadership is what he’s counting on and — so far at least — it’s working.
“I wait to see who stands out as being those leaders,” he said. “This year, we’re really junior-heavy. We only have two seniors (Davidson and Thornton). I felt it was a good opportunity to give the juniors a chance to be leaders. … That group of four has done a really nice job pulling everyone together.”
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.