AUGUSTA – Missing its scheduled starting pitcher and facing the lone undefeated team in the American Legion baseball state tournament, Bessey Motors turned to the one thing Andrews has had problems with all year: A lefty.

If it hadn’t have been for the five unearned runs, it might have worked.

Andrews capitalized on four errors over a three-inning stretch to post eight runs, five unearned, as the Portland-based team eliminated Bessey Motors, 9-4, Wednesday at McGuire Field.

“We’d had trouble, for whatever reason, with lefties this year,” said Andrews coach Mike Rutherford. “We got a couple of good bounces in the middle of the game that helped us out. It could easily have been a one-run game, though.”

Scheduled Bessey starter Joe Baker, a right-hander, is also one of the premier junior golfers in Maine, and had to play two matches at the Maine Junior Championships prior to making an appearance in the ballgame. That forced coach Shane Slicer to start Andrew Stacy. That turned out to be a good move. Stacy allowed three earned runs on nine hits over six innings to the high-powered Andrews lineup that rocked Nova Seafood for four home runs the day before.

“He did everything that we could have asked him to,” said Slicer. “This was much better than we did against Nova the other day (a 12-1 Bessey loss), and we showed that we could play with them. We just made some uncharacteristic errors that came, I think, because we were a bit unsure of ourselves in these types of games.”

In the fourth inning, already down 3-1 thanks to three runs on four hits and a fielding error in the second, Stacy walked three consecutive batters with two outs and three different fielders committed errors, allowing three unearned runs and two earned to score.

“I saw that Andrews had come back from down 6-0 early against Nova (Tuesday),” said Slicer. “They are such a patient club and they know how to work in those situations. We started to chip away after getting down 8-1. In fact we won the last five innings, but it was too much, I think.”

Bessey got its first run of the day five pitches into the game when Garrett Olson shot a fastball over the left-field fence. Bessey got two more in the fifth on a walk, two singles a fielder’s choice, and one more in the eighth on two hits and a walk.

“We got out of a couple of big innings that they could have done some real damage,” said Rutherford. “They left some men on with one out and with no outs that we struggled past.”

Andrews advances to play Nova in a rematch of Tuesday’s 14-12 slugfest Thursday.

If Nova wins the first game, a second game will determine the state champion.

jpelletier@sunjournal.com

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