Bessey Motors’ Colton Carlson fires the ball over the plate at a game with Pasttime’s baseball team at Gouin Athletic Complex in South Paris on Wednesday afternoon.
PARIS — Colton Carson started Wednesday’s American Legion baseball game mad, but finished it quite happy.
The Pastime batters, meanwhile, were left scratching their heads.
Carson tossed a one-hitter and was supported by a strong defense in Bessey Motors’ 3-0 victory at Tim Bryant Memorial Field.
“He was (on). He threw very well,” Bessey Motors assistant coach Lance Bean said. “He had all of his pitches throwing over the plate. Something he’s been working on is location, and looked really good today.”
Carson retired the first eight batters of the game, and a walk was the only other mark on his stellar outing.
“I came into it a little pissed off from last time, because we faced them a week ago and they hit the ball pretty well off me,” Carson said. “So I kind of came in with a chip on my shoulder.”
Carson ended each of the first three innings with a strikeout, including one after walking Pastime’s No. 9 batter Jack Leblond on four pitches with two outs in the third.
“It’s always nice to get a strikeout, especially to finish the inning, and just go get the bats going,” Carson said.
Bessey Motors (5-1) had hits in each of those first three innings, and scored all of its runs by the end of the third.
Two of those runs came in the bottom of the first. Cam Slicer led off with a walk against Hunter Richardson, then moved to second on a hit-and-run by Hunter LaBossiere, who grounded out.
Janek Luksza bounced a grounder to third and reached when a fan yelling “foul ball” behind the backstop caused a no-throw. Luksza’s infield single had bounced right in front of the plate.
Luksza took second, then Ashton Kennison’s single to center scored a pair of runs.
Pastime (6-2) manager Jake Brown said his team “moved on” from the odd circumstances of Luksza’s hit.
“That had nothing to do with the game. That happens,” Brown said. “I thought the kids did a really good job just moving on. It wasn’t talked about in the dugout after that inning, and that really had nothing to do with it.”
Luksza had a hard-hit single in the third, just out of the reach of Pastime second baseman Evan Cox. It followed a LaBossiere single, but Richardson got two outs for the price of one when Kennison grounded into a double play. LaBossiere was still at third, however, and he came home on Brayden Bean’s first-pitch bloop single to right.
“I think that’s the way baseball is. I think they found some holes, a couple bloop hits,” Brown said. “But they found ways to get on base, and we just couldn’t do that.”
Pastime made solid contact, but from the start Bessey Motors was just as solid in the field.
Luksza gobbled up a hard grounder at short before recovering and firing to first with one out in the first. Slicer ranged both to his right and his left for consecutive catches on fly balls in center to start the second. Kaden Cutler got to a low liner in right off the bat of Brock Belanger to open the fourth before Cox broke up Carson’s no-hitter with a liner to center. But Slicer got to another fly ball before Richardson grounded back to Carson for the final out.
“Our defense helped, too. They put the ball in play, and our defense made all the plays,” Bean said. “I think it’s huge. It keeps (Carson’s) pitch count down. Keeps everybody in the game. Everybody’s working hard. All nine guys out there in the field were busting their butt to make the plays.”
Carson needed just 75 pitches to get through seven innings of work. He retired the final 11 batters after Cox’s hit.
“I had all my pitches working well, and the defense was phenomenal behind me,” Carson said. “Just everything clicked.”
Lazy fly balls that Brown lamented after the game made way for grounders to end the game. Those couldn’t find their ways past Bessey Motors gloves, either. Carson bobbled an Eddie Turgeon grounder to the left side of the infield in the fifth, but third baseman Brayden Bean was right there to back up his pitcher and get the out at first. Then in the sixth, catcher Wyatt Williamson quickly got to a Gage Cote bunt and fired an in-time throw from his knees.
“Gage had a perfect bunt there, and the catcher made a good play,” Brown said. “Shortstop, third baseman all had some good plays that I really think kind of changed that momentum.”
Richardson scattered seven hits and was saddled with the loss despite what Brown said was a “really good job.”
“He didn’t have his best stuff early on, but he really found a way to battle and keep us in the game through seven innings,” Brown said.
It was just that Carson and the Bessey Motors defense kept Pastime out of the game.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
Pastime’s Jack Leblond gets back to first base safely before Bessey Motors’ Ashton Kennison can tag him out during the match up at Gouin Athletic Complex in South Paris on Wednesday.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
