POLAND – Imagine stepping into the batter’s box or toeing the rubber, then looking back behind the plate and seeing that the man behind the umpire’s mask is your coach.
That’s the unenviable position the Poland Knights found themselves in for Monday’s 1-0 win over York. Their first-year coach, Dave Jordan, was in the more unenviable position, having to umpire the game after no officials were scheduled for the Western Maine Conference contest.
Will Griffiths, Keegan Fennessy and Alex Smith combined on a four-hit shutout and Max Levine drove in the game’s only run as the Knights improved their record to 7-1. The Wildcats dropped to 1-7.
Levine, Jeremy Callahan and Tyler Merchant had two hits apiece for the Knights. Jeff Cole was the hard-luck loser for the Wildcats, giving up seven hits, fanning five and walking two in six innings.
Jordan, a board certified umpire, worked the game alone after York coach James Scully agreed to allow him to umpire rather than make the return trip to Poland today.
“It wasn’t their fault that no umpires showed up. It was just a tough situation,” said Scully. “We’re already up here, the (varsity) softball game had already started, so we needed to get it done.”
“It was tough,” said Levine. “There were a couple of calls that were a little hazy, but he did the best he could with one pair of eyes. We all had to play extra careful because he was going to be worried about looking like he was playing favorites, but I think he did a really good job.”
Jordan had some tough calls, as one might expect for someone working alone in a one-run game. The first came in the first inning, when Levine smacked a 3-2 pitch over the left fielders head to the fence. First baseman Andy Leconte took the throw from left fielder Jessie Wehring and made a perfect relay throw to the plate to cut down Callahan, who held up briefly between second and third to make sure Wehring wouldn’t catch the ball.
Griffiths, a sophomore, held the Wildcats scoreless despite having one man in scoring position in the first and two in scoring position in the third with one out. Fennessy took over in the fourth and found himself in a similar predicament, allowing a leadoff double to Erik Rostad, but he retired the next three batters without allowing Rostad to get past second.
“Just a couple of key hits that we couldn’t get, which has been our problem all year,” Scully said. “We’ve actually been hitting pretty well but haven’t been getting the key hits.”
The Knights scored the game’s only run in the bottom of the fourth. Stevie Ray led off with an infield single, stole second and scored on Levine’s single.
Fennessy shut down the Wildcats over the next two innings, allowing only a walk.
“My role on the team is to come in and throw strikes, so that’s pretty much what I have in my head before every inning,” said Fennessy, who picked up his second win on the season.
Smith came on to work a perfect seventh, striking out two en route to the save.
“It was a good game. York played tough,” said Poland assistant coach Charlie Pray, who took over as head coach with Jordan indisposed. “We have two other games this week, so we had strict pitch counts with all of our pitchers. That made it tough, too, but we got a great pitching job from Will the first three innings, then Keegan came in and Alex shut them down at the end.”
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