SOUTH PARIS — Oxford Hills has leaned on Colton Carson time and time again over the last four years, knowing that when its ace is on the mound, the team is usually in a good place.
On Monday afternoon, the Edward Little Red Eddies came to town and ran into a buzzsaw in Carson, who forced ground outs, fly outs and strikeouts in an 11-1, five-inning win.
“I mean, going into the game we know he’s going to be good for us,” Cam Slicer said. “I think he had 10 strikeouts. It’s awesome knowing someone else is taking care of you for a little bit.”
Carson finished with nine strikeouts, but the future University of Maine pitcher painted the outside edge and broke batters down with off-speed pitches from the start. The Eddies only managed five total hits while getting shut out in the first and third innings, the third featuring three strikeouts.
“I felt pretty good,” Carson said. “I had a good understanding of the zone and it just felt good.”
The Eddies attempted to work the pitch counts each at bat, forcing Carson into a 27-pitch second inning and a 19-pitch third. They left the bases loaded in the second, leaving the door open for the Vikings.
When players take a lot of pitches to extend the pitch counts, Carson knows what to do.
“You just gotta bare down, focus and throw strikes pretty much,” Carson said. “Trust your pitches and trust the pitches that were called.”
Slicer opened the bottom of the first with his first of three singles on the day, followed by a single from Rod Bean. Janek Luksza drove in Slicer, and a sacrifice fly later in the inning scored Bean.
The Vikings tacked on three more runs in the third when Cade Truman hit a long triple into left-center field to score Will Dieterich. The game was played behind Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School where there is no outfield wall, making Truman’s hit longer than normal. Oxford Hills had four total hits in the inning.
For Carson, the run support helps his confidence just as much as the players when he’s on the mound.
“You have a whole different demeanor when you have run support and it just helps your confidence,” Carson said. “It helps everyone’s confidence and you can go play baseball.”
Luksza walked to start the fourth, followed by two steals and a run scored after Wyatt Williamson’s single that also scored Ashton Kennison.
Oxford Hills led by eight runs after four innings, and after five games in seven days, coach Shane Slicer had a decision to make with his ace on the mound.
“We had a close game at Bangor (on Saturday) and we didn’t play our best game and I’m not saying we played our best game today but we hit the ball pretty well,” Shane Slicer said. “Dave (Jordan, Edward Little’s coach) was throwing a bunch of different guys at us because he has a long week so I understand all that. We had Colton available and they always have a good club so I didn’t want to overlook them. If Colton’s ready, he’s ready and it was his turn. I thought he struggled at times but it’s nice we got 10 runs so he didn’t have to go back out there.”
Nick Gagne was sent in to pitch the fourth inning and gave up just one run. Gagne then led off the sixth inning with a single into left-center, leading to Gagne scoring the team’s lone run off Christian Beliveau’s ground out.
Gagne loaded the bases before being taken out in the fifth. That led to a sacrifice fly by Noah Oufiero, then a two-run single by Slicer to invoke the 10-run mercy rule.
Edward Little moves to 5-3 on the year after it’s fifth game in seven days. For Jordan, the focus is on finding a reliable pitching staff on his young team.
“We have a lot of games,” Jordan said. “We had four games last week and have four games this week. It’s one of those things, we are trying to build a staff with everything going on and I thought we made some pitches at times and our fielders didn’t support them enough and in some situations we didn’t make our pitches. We have a young team and working to improve everyday and that’s the team that everyone is trying to get to.”
Adam Robinson — 207-212-1927
arobinson@sunjournal.com
Twitter: @FunkFlashyRob
Send questions/comments to the editors.
