DIXFIELD — What we know after a blustery Monday afternoon at Harlow Park is that Oak Hill baseball is back, and that Dirigo hasn’t gone anywhere.
A weird Mountain Valley Conference contest marked by base-running blunders in both directions ended with the two-time defending Class C champion Cougars on top, 4-2, and with both clubs believing they’ll be a lot better off in June than April.
“Overall we did OK, but I’m not happy with where we are right now. We have to get better. I’m confident we will get better. It’ll take a little time,” Dirigo coach Ryan Palmer said. “We did lose seven seniors. We’ve got to try to be patient.”
Kaine Hutchins went 2-for-3, including the lone run-producing hit for Dirigo, and picked up the pitching with five persistent and resilient innings on the hill. Gavin Arsenault had three hits, including a double, and pitched two innings of one-hit ball to nail down the save.
Dalton Therrien led Class B West contender Oak Hill (2-1) with a single, a double and a run scored. Jake Bannister added an RBI to back up five solid innings of work by Jake Martin.
“The good sign is it’s a good game between two conference powerhouses, and we keep fighting,” Oak Hill coach Matt Bray said. “The first two games we pounded in 19 runs in two games. We’re hitting the ball, which is good. Today we just didn’t get the hit when we needed it.”
Dirigo (1-1) used a flurry of singles and walks — the first seven Cougars reached base — to accumulate a 3-0 lead in a rain-soaked first inning.
Arsenault, Mitch Kubesh and Hutchins each had a hit, with Hutchins’ flare over the shortstop’s outstretched glove delivering a run. Anthony Todd and Nick St. Germain drew bases-loaded walks against Martin.
“We went through our whole order,” Arsenault said. “That was good.”
It could have been bigger and better.
Bannister threw out a runner attempting to steal. Miscommunication on a squeeze play also led to a Cougar being forced out at the plate.
Martin escaped the jam with the first of his six strikeouts.
“What we said was we got three runs, which is good, but we still left the bases loaded, which isn’t good,” Palmer said.
It was Oak Hill’s turn to have potentially gigantic innings short-circuited in the third, fourth and fifth.
Therrien’s leadoff double and an unsuccessful fielder’s choice put runners at the corners with one out in the third. Brady Dion then stole second, and Therrien scampered home when the throw caromed out of a Dirigo glove and trickled into center field.
Cody Dolloff saved the inning for Dirigo by gloving Parker Asselin’s line drive and flipping to Kubesh to double up the runner at second base.
“We played today aggressively,” Bray said. “We feel as if we can contend with anybody in the conference. It’s always been St. Dom’s and Dirigo. We played that way today. I was a little too aggressive on some of the plays today, and we just didn’t get the hits.”
Oak Hill drew three consecutive walks to start the fourth. Arsenault cradled Adam Merrill’s fly ball into shallow center field on the run before throwing a rope to catcher Tyler Frost to peg Bannister at the plate.
Hits by Jonah Martin and Asselin put Hutchins in another suffocating spot in the fifth.
Bannister then legged out an infield single to score Jake Martin and make it 3-2. When the ball bounced away into right field, Asselin took off from third and tried to score the tying run. Todd threw the laser to home this time, and Frost won the collision at the plate.
“Thank God for our defense today, because that’s why we won it,” Palmer said. “And a decent pitching performance.”
Hutchins allowed only one earned run, struck out four and walked four.
Therrien’s leadoff single in the seventh represented the only blemish on Arsenault’s work as the closer. He fanned three, including Jake Martin with a high, off-speed pitch to end it.
“Both my fastballs, two-seam and four-seam were working, and then at the end my change-up was working,” Arsenault said.
Dirigo scored a sixth-inning insurance run in bizarre fashion. The Cougars botched back-to-back suicide squeeze attempts, but pinch runner Bryce Whittemore took advantage of a throwing error in the first rundown.
“It’s a mixture of everything,” Palmer said of the ups-and-downs. “Not being outside, not working on it a lot, and we are very inexperienced.”
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