Oxford Hills rallies from a five-run deficit to top Mt. Ararat.

SOUTH PARIS – There were no Major League scouts, no radar guns, and no Mark Rogers on the mound for Mt. Ararat Wednesday at Gouin Athletic Complex.

It took a while for the Oxford Hills Vikings to accept these truths, but they finally did. And not a moment too soon, as they pulled off a dramatic 6-5 comeback win to hand the nationally-ranked Eagles their first defeat of the season.

Matt McDonnell doubled in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh as the Vikings overcame a 5-0 deficit, plus being no-hit for the first 5 1/3 innings, to improve to 7-0 and take sole possession of first place in the KVAC.

“I knew I was going to get a hit. If (Eagles’ reliever Brandon Galarneau) pitched one over the plate, I was going to put it in play,” said McDonnell.

The Vikings thought they might draw Rogers, a senior with a fastball in the mid-90s, a full scholarship to the University of Miami and the undivided attention of virtually every Major League team. But the fireballer pitched Tuesday against Skowhegan, tossing a one-hitter while striking out 20 for the Eagles, who are 25th in the nation in Baseball America’s most recent high school rankings.

Instead, Ethan Ogilby took the hill for the Eagles (6-1) and proceeded to baffle Oxford Hills with an assortment of off-speed pitches and sliders.

“The guys got hyped up to face (Rogers). The crowd wants to see him. He’s such a big show right now,” said Vikings’ coach Shane Slicer. “I think they wanted to do too much the first few innings. Ogilby hides the ball well and his slider was really good. They were getting everything off the end of the bat.”

Ogilby (six innings, four runs, two hits, four Ks, two walks) faced just two batters over the minimum through the first five innings and had allowed only one ball out of the infield through five.

“He isn’t throwing the same pitch twice in a row and you’ve got to adjust to it the first couple of times up,” McDonnell said. “Once we got a hang of it, we started putting the ball in play and getting some runs.”

Mt. Ararat didn’t exactly tear the cover off the ball against Ogilby’s counterpart for Oxford Hills, Corey Tielinen (seven innings, two earned runs, four hits, four strikeouts, six walks), but the Eagles plated three runs in the third on a pair of Vikings errors and a well-executed squeeze play. Another throwing error and a wild pitch in the fifth made it 5-0.

The Vikings scratched a run across in the fifth on an error and an RBI ground out by Rob McVety.

“That one run kind of got us going,” Slicer said. “I think that really helped. We had the momentum.”

Ogilby appeared to tire in the sixth, walking pinch hitter Chris Jennings with one out before yielding his first hit, a clean single to right by Kelvin Decato. Following a walk to McDonnell, Joe Baker stroked a two-run single to right-center, making it 5-3. Chris Henderson’s sacrifice fly then made it a one-run game.

Galarneau came on to start the seventh to try to close it out but immediately got himself into trouble by walking the leadoff batter, McVety. After a sacrifice bunt and another walk, Jennings stroked an 0-1 pitch just over the third base bag to score McVety with the tying run.

Galraneau struck out Decato for the second out before McDonnell ended it by ripping a 2-1 pitch to right-center.

“I was happy with the way the guys responded, win or lose,” Slicer said. “Being down, 5-0, being no-hit and being frustrated with the way we were approaching things at the plate, to come back I think shows a lot about them.”