LEWISTON — Ethan Brown lost his no-hitter, and then a chance at the pitching win, but he helped make sure that Edward Little beat rival Lewiston.

Brown didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning, and then drove in the winning run in the top of the eighth inning to help lift the Red Eddies to a 3-2 Class A North baseball victory over the Blue Devils at Joseph Deschenes Field on Tuesday.

Neither Brown nor EL coach Dave Jordan knew that Brown had no-hitter going into the fifth, but Lewiston coach Darren Hartley said he did.

“He was overpowering with his fastball, he threw the curve for strikes. But then he threw it short, and we couldn’t hang off it, and that’s to his credit. He did a great job pitching today, and he deserves that,” Hartley said.

Brown did have to work around hit batters in each of the first two innings and three of the first four. The Blue Devils (2-1) put runners in scoring position in each of the first seven innings, but couldn’t score until the sixth, and by then they were trailing 2-0.

“We certainly left a bunch of base runners on, and it’s just because we didn’t get the timely hit, which we’ve been able to do that the last year or so, and today we didn’t get it,” Hartley said.

The Red Eddies (2-0) fared better converting their chances, though Lewiston starter Owen Cox didn’t give them many.

A leadoff error to open the top of the second led to EL’s first run. Ben Cassidy followed with a single inside the right-field line, which moved Brown to third. Jack Keefe dribbled an infield single down the third base line to load the bases, and Chase Martin hit a sacrifice fly to center to drive in Brown.

All three of EL’s runs came on sacrifice flies to center.

“I thought our guys did a really good job of executing, in terms of taking bases when we could. I thought that we came up with some good situational hitting, in terms of moving runners, and some clutch hitting. We had guys in scoring position as well,” Jordan said. “I don’t know how many hits we had, but it just seemed like when we got guys on we were able to move them around and get a chance to put them in scoring position and get them in.”

A double play ended the second-inning threat, and Cox got out of another jam in the third thanks to Robert Dostie’s diving catch of a foul fly, then tossed 1-2-3 frames in the fourth and fifth.

But a pair of walks in the sixth — his only two unintentional walks — gave the Red Eddies the base runners they needed for another run. Jake Arel drew the first walk and stole second. Then he stole third as Brown was drawing another walk. Cassidy then brought Arel home with a sac fly.

That ended Cox’s day after 5 2/3 innings. He gave up only three hits, two runs (one earned), along with three walks and four strikeouts. Josh Murphy took over and induced a groundout to end the threat.

Brown’s day on the mound ended soon after Cox broke up the no-hitter with one out in the fifth. Cox grounded a single past the diving attempt of Brown’s brother, Austin, who was playing shortstop. Pinch runner Danny May then stole second and moved to third on Noah Hill’s groundout. Hunter Landry then walked, but Brown got out of the inning with his eighth strikeout.

He allowed just the one hit in five innings, with one walk and three hit batters.

“Just keeping ahead, trying to work guys, be picky, not give them anything good to hit,” Brown said.

Lewiston got to Austin Brown in the sixth to finally get on the scoreboard. Brodi Farinas walked with one out, then two batters later Cooper Millett tripled him home. But Austin Brown picked up his only strikeout to strand Millett.

In the bottom of the seventh, Hill scored the tying run with a steal and back-to-back errors. Brown intentionally walked two batters, sandwiched around a fly out, to load the bases with two outs, but prevented any further damage with a groundout that first baseman Cassidy took care of himself.

Christian Belliveau led off the top of the eighth with a walk against Murphy, then moved to second on Arel’s sacrifice bunt. Belliveau stole third, putting him in position to score on Ethan Brown’s hard-hit low fly that Millett was able to track down for the out, but the throw home had no chance to catch the speedy Belliveau.

“(I was) thinking other side, opposite field, trying to do something to get (Christian) in,” Brown said. “I hit that ball hard. I thought it was going to land. He caught it. He made a good play.”

Austin Brown pitched a 1-2-3 frame in the bottom of the inning to close out the game.

“The first two innings Austin pitched were a little — lot of base runners,” Ethan Brown said. “It was nice to have it smooth and easy there.”

“I thought both (Ethan) and Austin, they threw strikes. I thought it was kind of a cold day to get a grip on the ball, but I thought (both) battled and they made a lot of good pitches when they needed to,” Jordan said.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com

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