AUBURN – Left for dead after a four-game losing streak and a seat in the cellar of the Zone 3 American Legion baseball standings, Gayton Post 31 desperately needed at least a split with New Auburn at Pettengill Park on Saturday to keep up with the top teams.

Gayton did itself one better.

An outburst of 19 runs on 22 hits and solid pitching from three pitchers helped Gayton to its first sweep of New Auburn in four years, winning by scores of 11-7 and 8-7. The Lewiston-based team last bested Post 153 on consecutive Saturday games in the summer of 1999.

“It’s been a week of interesting firsts for us,” said New Auburn coach Brian Flynn. We lost to Poland for the first time ever this week, too.”

New Auburn, after starting 5-0, has lost 10 of 11, while the two wins snapped a four-game skid for Gayton.

“We’d had such a tough week,” said Gayton coach John Hesler. “This was just great for the team. We needed this.”

While Gayton (6-10) relied heavily on New Auburn errors in the first game (the first six runs it scored were unearned against starter Rory Flynn), the bats came alive in the second game.

Ben Mendelson, leading off as the designated hitter after being hit for during much of the high school season and used sparingly at catcher early in the legion season, pounded out three hits and added a walk, while Ryan Turgeon was 4-for-5 with two doubles after leaving the first game when he was hit by a pitch.

“That hurt quite a bit,” said Turgeon. “I couldn’t hold on to the bat that well, but I was seeing the ball really well in the second game. I just swung at the pitches I felt good about hitting.”

Pat Ouellette reached base four times in five trips to the plate, while Shawn Sabine went 2-for-3 with a walk and two runs scored. All eight of Gayton’s runs in the second game were earned, with all but one coming against starter Brandon Elie.

“We’ve been in the cage a lot, working on hitting,” said Mendelson. “I saw (Elie) throw two good curve balls in the first game (in which he came in as a relief pitcher), so I sat on those in the second game. That worked out.”

After taking a 2-0 lead and losing it to a five-run fourth, Gayton did what it hadn’t done much of all season. It counter-attacked.

Post 31 sent 18 men to the plate in the fourth and fifth innings combined, scoring nine runs on five hits and four errors.

“We had them after we came back and went up on them,” said Flynn. “And then we made some fielding errors and let them right back in. This was a big loss for us in that we need to win to build confidence. We haven’t had every piece of our game come together at once all season, and that’s going to have to change heading into the playoffs.”

The hits kept coming in Game 2. Gayton sped out to a 3-0 lead in the first on four hits, including an RBI double by Mike LeClair, and added one more each in the second and third innings.

In the fourth, Gayton again struck for three when Mendelson, Turgeon and Ouellette led off the inning with consecutive hits. All three came around to score.

“We started to chip away after that, and that was encouraging,” said Flynn. “But we need to start playing better baseball.”

Adam Longchamps got the complete-game win in the opener, while Ryan O’Hara struck out five in six innings for the win and Tyler Turgeon pitched the seventh to earn the save in the second game.

Joey Dumont was the a bright spot for New Auburn in the second game with a home run, two singles, a walk and four runs scored. In Game 1, Derek Miller and Craig Cormier had doubles in the five-run fifth inning for Post 153.

jpelletier@sunjournal.com

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