FARMINGTON — For the moment, Lewiston baseball coach Darren Hartley is elated over the Blue Devils’ timely hitting against Mt. Blue, but he wants to see more this season.
The Blue Devils (5-3) strung together 12 hits and conjured up a pair of four-run innings to dispatch the winless Mt. Blue Cougars 13-2 in a baseball game at Hippach Field on a sunny Monday afternoon.
“We have lost three baseball games because we haven’t had a timely hit in my opinion,” Hartley said. “We let the game Saturday against Mt. Ararat get away from us because the third time we didn’t get timely hitting.
“Today, we started out slow. We keep talking about wanting to start fast, but we didn’t again,” he said. “Finally, we had a couple of good strings and the middle of our order was very confident and they showed it today — and I am very, very happy right now.
The score was tied at one heading into the third inning when the Blue Devils used three timely hits, an error and a pair of walks to push across those runs.
Outfielder Hunter Landry, who had three hits, drove in a run followed by shortstop Owen Cox’s RBI single. Outfielder Robert Dostie drove in a pair of runs with his single to give Lewiston a 5-1 lead.
From there on, the Blue Devils picked up a run here and a run there. In the fourth, Jack Leblond cracked a triple and Lewiston picked up two more runs with the help of a pair of errors.
The voracious Blue Devils collected four more runs in the sixth. Leblond ripped his second triple and drove in a run. Cox and Landry hammered RBI singles and pinch hitter Sam Laroche had an RBI double.
Dostie drove in the Blue Devils’ final run in the seventh inning.
The Cougars (four hits) scored their first run in the second inning when shortstop Hunter Meeks after being hit by a pitch. He came home when first baseman Jack Kearing singled.
Mt. Blue punched in another run in the bottom of the sixth inning when designated hitter Sam Wrigley got on with a walk and came home of third baseman Ian Barker’s RBI single.
“We had a couple of good cut-off scenarios in the gap, but we also had a couple of bad cut-off scenarios in the gap,” Mt. Blue coach Ben Davis said. “(We) put together a couple of base hits together, not rolling over as much and seeing some line drives through the infield.
Lewiston sophomore pitcher Brandon Beaupre got the win on the mound after coming in in the fifth inning and relieving Josh Murphy. Mt. Blue’s Jackson Joyce was tagged with the loss.
“Obviously, we have Oxford Hills coming Wednesday,” Hartley said. “I know they have had the game on their calendar a long time and so have we. Our measurement is Oxford Hills and Bangor in the conference. We look forward to the challenge. We have made some mistakes and we hope to amend them going forward.”
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