WALES – It wasn’t a typical Oak Hill win that fans of the team have come to know over the past few seasons, but it was enough to move the Raiders on to the next round of the playoffs.

Wally Rines hit a bloop single in the bottom of the seventh inning to score Pat Duchette from second base, lifting No. 2 Oak Hill to a 4-3 come-from-behind win over No. 7 Falmouth Friday.

“It wasn’t what we wanted at all,” Oak Hill coach Bill Fairchild said. “That was called battle. We were out of sync, but we battled. It was nice to have enough pitching to just keep going at them.”

Duchette got the win on the mound for the Raiders (16-1) after pitching to three hitters in the ninth inning, getting all three outs. Had the game gone into an eighth inning, Oak Hill starter Rick Leavitt would have re-entered the game, according to Fairchild.

“(Duchette) is going to pitch (Saturday),” Fairchild said. “We wanted to save him, so Rick was going to come back in.”

But Leavitt’s bullpen session turned out to be an unnecessary precaution, thanks to Rines’ single that barely fell behind diving Falmouth shortstop Dana Dresser.

“I got a pitch outside and I just slapped it out there,” Rines said. “At two strikes, I was just looking for anything to hit and it was low and away, so I slapped at it.”

At second base, Duchette never hesitated.

“I’m not the fastest runner,” Duchette said, “but I was going on the hit and broke early. When I came around third and saw the catcher with his head down, I knew I was in there.”

The game was only in doubt late because of Falmouth’s opportunistic hitting early in the contest.

In the second inning, the Yachtsmen (11-7) took advantage of the first of two errors by Raiders’ third baseman Shaffstall when Josh Parks scored from first on a Xander Rich double. In the fourth, another early error by Shaffstall, Falmouth plated two more runs on a single by David Geary.

“Rick wasn’t placing his pitches well today,” Fairchild said. “When you miss your marks against good hitters, it’ll come back to haunt you.”

Oak Hill started to fight back in the bottom of the fourth, using four singles to plate Jason Guerette and Rines to pull back within a run. In the fifth, Guerette tied the game by himself with a solo home run to left-center field between the 325 and 350-foot markers.

“I would have been happy with a hit on the ground at that point,” Guerette said. “I knew it felt good off the bat and when I rounded first and saw the umpire signaling the home run, that was just a great feeling.”

Ray Baston pitched well for Falmouth, allowing just the four runs on seven hits in seven innings. He had four strikeouts to go along with three walks.

Adam Labbe relieved Leavitt in the fourth inning and gutted out 2 1/3 innings of relief while battling an illness before giving way to Duchette in the seventh.

Oak Hill will host NAME in the Western semifinals on Saturday at 1 p.m.

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