Frank found a groove after a rocky first inning and shut Locke Mills down with the help of some excellent glove work by his teammates for the complete game six-hitter.

“The defense was solid,” Frank said. “Ty (Martin) at third was really good.

Martin made several fine plays on an array of grounders, bouncers, choppers and slow rollers to third.

“It was a good day. I liked it,” Martin said. “I don’t think it’s a secret Will has overpowering stuff like Dalt (Rice) or other people on our staff. So with the tail on his ball, he’s able to get a lot of pop flies and a lot of ground balls. We have a solid infield so we help him out.”

Martin also starred for Bessey offensively, going 2 for 3 with a double, walk, three RBIs and two runs scored.

Bessey (4-0) made just one harmless error with the game already essentially decided, with one out in the seventh. Locke Mills (1-3) made three crucial errors, all in the second and third innings in which Bessey scored seven of its eight runs.

Trailing 2-0 in the second, Bessey loaded the bases on two walks and a hit batsmen against Locke Mills starter Logan Bartlett. Brady LaFrance hit a grounder to the left side that the shortstop fielded and fired home, well wide of catcher Tyler Frost’s lunge and to the backstop, which sent two runs home.

Riley Chickering followed with a sacrifice fly that put Bessey in front, 3-2.

“I thought the turning point in the game was Logan had the two walks and the hit batter then fought like crazy to get a ground ball and we threw it away at home plate and two runs scored,” Locke Mills coach Ryan Palmer said. “After that, it was downhill. You can’t give good teams outs.”

They gave away a couple of more in Bessey’s four-run third. A pair of errant pickoff throws — one by Bartlett and one by Frost — put runners in scoring position for Martin’s two-run double and Aiden Heikkinen’s fielder’s choice that scored Martin. After going from first to third on Bartlett’s errant pickoff attempt, Heikkinen scored on a wild pitch to make it 7-2.

Locke Mills couldn’t get much going against Frank after Tyler Frost’s RBI triple and Anthony Todd’s RBI single gave it the early lead.

“I started getting my locations,” Frank said. “I just couldn’t really hit it in the first inning with my curve ball. Then I started to and that helped out.”

LaFrance made a couple of nice diving catches in right field to limit Locke Mills’ opportunities. There was nothing he or center fielder Chickering could do about Todd’s leadoff triple into the gap in the fourth.

But the defense came through again moments later. Caleb Gauvin hit a grounder to Martin, who didn’t hesitate to fire home when he saw Todd break for home.

“He’s quick, and I was really surprised, but I knew at the same time that we had a chance if we fielded it cleanly,” he said, “so I decided to get it to ( catcher Matt) Smith and see what we could do.”

What they did was get Todd in a brief rundown that ended with Smith chasing Todd back towards third and tagging him out. Smith alertly noticed Gauvin trying to take second base on the back end of the play and fired to Nick Attaliades-Ryan, who threw out Gauvin trying to retreat to first.

Locke Mills never got another runner past second base.

“We did what we’ve done our first four games, actually, which is come out like a ball of fire the first inning. We scored two quick runs and then our defense definitely let us down,” Palmer said.

Mitch Lorenz tripled and Martin drove him in with a single for Bessey’s eighth run in the sixth.

Frost and Todd had two hits apiece for Locke Mills. Attaliades-Ryan had two hits for Bessey Motors.

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