GRAY — Yarmouth embraced the role of underdog for Tuesday’s Western Class B prelim with Gray-New Gloucester.
“We have nothing to lose,” first baseman Luke Klenda said. “We’re a 10-seed. They’re the one’s that’s pressured. They’re the seven seed.”
Even with the game tied in the middle innings, Yarmouth pitcher Jordan Brown made sure the pressure stayed on the Patriots by keeping them off the base paths.
Brown retired the final 11 batters and Caleb Pineo’s two-out single in the seventh made the difference in a 5-3 win for the Clippers.
Yarmouth (9-8) will face No. 2 Greely in the quarterfinals. Gray-New Gloucester ends its season at 9-8.
Pineo and Klenda matched the Patriots’ offensive output with three hits apiece. Brown allowed just three hits, didn’t walk a batter and hit one while striking out eight while going the distance.
“I like keeping them off-balance, not going to the same batters with the same pitches,” Brown said. “When it was 3-3, I really needed to dig in and stop them from scoring so we could get some baserunners and get some runs.”
Klenda got the winning rally started with a one-out single against Patriots starter Tyler St. Pierre. Pinch runner Ben Pineo moved to second on a wild pitch, then barely beat Thomas Wood’s throw to third on Brown’s fly ball to left-center.
Caleb Pineo drove his brother home with a seeing-eye single between the diving first and second basemen. Singles by Jack Snyder and Ryan Nason added the insurance run.
“This was probably one of the best hitting games we had all year, just getting contact and solid hits,” said Brown, whose team collected nine hits. “It comes down to getting hits when it matters, and at the end of the game, we did that.”
Brown bounced back from what could have been a critical baserunning mistake in the third. With the game tied, 1-1, Caleb Pineo cracked a double into the left-center field gap. It drove home Klenda from second and appeared to score Brown easily from first.
Gray-New Gloucester coach Brad Smith noticed Brown missed the bag when rounding third and had the Patriots appeal the play. Brown was ruled out for the final out of the inning, which meant only Klenda’s run counted.
Rather than carry the error with him to the mound, Brown faced the minimum in the bottom of the frame, picking off Tyler Credit at first immediately after allowing his first hit of the game.
“You’ve just got to forget about the last play,” Brown said. “You can’t think about the last play or the whole game could switch in an instant. So, I just let it go. We got a run off of it, so …”
Brown allowed two of his three hits in the fourth and Gray took its only lead. Justin McKenna, who led off the inning with a single, scored after Brown uncorked a wild pitch as a suicide squeeze attempt was unfolding. J.T. Magno, who had the other hit, stole second, went to third on the wild pitch and scored on Brandon Hubbard’s sacrifice fly to right to make it 3-2.
Brown allowed just one more ball out of the infield the rest of the way.
“Our kids have a difficult time putting the ball in play,” Smith said. “For a team that plays as well as Yarmouth, or anybody, you’re just not going to win ball games like that.”
Yarmouth tied it in the fifth after and error and singles by Connor Lainey and Luke Klenda loaded the bases with no one out. Lainey ultimately scored on Pineo’s ground out to second.
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