AUGUSTA — The Pastime Club fought tooth and nail to the end, but a bottom-of-the-ninth rally just came up short in the 7-6 loss to Windham at the American Legion State Tournament. The loss eliminates Pastime.

“I am very proud of our guys, yes, we made quite a few mistakes today, but we showed a lot more resiliency then we had the last game,” said Pastime head coach Dave Jordan. “We played the whole game and we battled. We faced a very good opponent and a very good pitcher.”

Down 7-4 in the ninth with Nick Perrault on first, Corbin Hyde sent a moonshot into the woods over the right-field fence off Windham’s starting pitcher Cody Dube. Ryan Riordan got on base with a single, but Alex Small and Brian Wigant, recorded outs to end the game.

“Corbin (Hyde) is a great hitter, one of the best in the state,” said Windham coach Brody Artes. Again  (Dube) made a mistake to him. Good thing there wasn’t one more runner on base, that’s all.”

Windham got the key seventh run in the top half of the inning after Pastime made a couple errors that led to a run..

“I will take that blame on myself preparing our guys to make plays today,” said Jordan, referring to infield errors. “Plays we typically make, we didn’t make, not as many as we should of. It puts us in a hole, but I don’t want to take anything away from our guys battling back.”

Windham had a 6-0 lead through 6½ innings. Pastime starter Eddie Emerson got himself in a jam in the third inning by walking a couple batters, but escaped by only allowing one run. Windham opened up a 4-0 lead in the top of the fifth as Ethan Petty laced a bases-loaded, two-run double off of Pastime reliever Luke Cote. Petty would later come around to score.

“We did a very good job today of scoring runs when ground ball outs were made by our batters,” Artes said. “Kids took advantage what was there and what was given to them.”

In the sixth, Nate Boyle scored for Windham. Pastime finally got to Dube in the seventh.  

Nick Perraul,t who after a lengthy at bat, ripped a double which scored two runners. Hyde nearly missed a home run as the ball scrapped off the top of the fence in right center. He later scored to cut Windham’s lead down to 6-4.

“Nick is a young man and a great competitor,” Jordan added. “He’s a battler, I’ve seen him do that so many times through the high school season and the (Legion) season where he makes in bat adjustments.”

Dube went all nine innings for Windham, striking out six.

“Cody did a good job communicating with us during the game. He felt good the whole game,” Artes said. “In the sixth inning, he felt it was his first inning and he had a lot of energy. In the (seventh inning) when they scored their four runs, he said he made a couple of mistakes. We were confident he would get the job done, and he did.”

 Emerson went three and a third innings for Pastime and Luke Cote went the rest of the way in relief.

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