AUGUSTA – Nova Seafood has been waiting for its powerful lineup to break out ever since the Zone 4 tournament. Unfortunately for Bessey Motors, the wait was over after Thursday.

The three-time defending champions used a 10-run fourth inning to knock Bessey out of the winner’s bracket of the state American Legion baseball tournament with a 17-3 win shortened to seven innings by the 10-run rule.

Chris Burleson drove in five runs, including a back-breaking grand slam in the fourth inning deluge, and Ryan Piacentini knocked in four, including a two-run homer of his own. Ryan Flaherty also homered for Nova.

Bessey (19-7) will face Zone 3 rival Locke Mills in an elimination game at 1 p.m. today. Nova (25-2) meets Zone 4 nemesis Andrews Post at 4 p.m.

“We’ve had streaky hitting, so we had to step it up,” said Nova coach Mike D’Andrea. “I felt like we did a good job setting the table today and in the middle innings, we finally got some big hits.”

“It’s one game. That’s the way we’ve got to look at it,” said Bessey coach Shane Slicer. “They’re tough, and we knew we had to play tough. We played tough. We gave them runs (early). We should have been up 3-0.”

Bessey southpaw starter Andrew Stacy struggled with the strike zone throughout, and Nova made him pay. Two hits, a hit batsmen and a bases loaded walk in the first gave Nova an early 1-0 lead. Two more walks to Nova’s eight and nine hitters, Neil Esposito and Piacentini, to lead off the second proved costly, as Mike D’Andrea, the coach’s son, made it 2-0 with a sacrifice fly.

Bessey stayed patient against Nova starter Jeff Skillin (five innings, six hits, three Ks, one walk) and finally broke through in the fourth. Stacy (3-for-3) and Chris Henderson (2-for-3) got the rally going with back-to-back singles to start the inning and Corey Tielinen walked to load the bases. Mike Stacy brought Andrew Stacy home with a sacrifice fly, then Matt McDonnell belted a double over the center fielder’s head to tie it. Russell Estes put Bessey in front with a sacrifice fly to score Tielinen.

The lead was short-lived, however, as Stacy walked Esposito and Piacentini again to start the bottom of the frame, D’Andrea singled to load the bases and Burleson smashed a 1-0 offering from Stacy over the fence in left to open the floodgates.

“You’re just waiting for a good fastball to hit, because he’s not getting his curve ball over. So you look for a good pitch to hit and swing hard,” Burleson said.

Flaherty knocked the next pitch over the fence in right to chase Stacy. Josh Stowell, D’Andrea and Burleson added to the lead with RBI singles off reliever Mike Stacy.

“We had a small (strike) zone at the plate and we were forced to groove it,” said Slicer. “We decided at that point to get the lefty out of there. It wasn’t his best day and you’ve got to keep the tournament in mind as far as your pitching staff. Then they were hitting Mike and I thought it was out of reach at that point.”

Nova put up five more in the fifth on a three-run double by Esposito and Piacentini’s two-run homer.

“In between innings we were talking about how, sure, we were scraping some runs in, but we just weren’t getting that big hit,” D’Andrea said. “Michael did a real good job coming up with some big hits, getting on base, and Neil Esposito and Ryan being patient at the plate. Obviously, Chris Burleson’s hit kind of opened the game up and got us back to where we felt comfortable.”