By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

HEBRON – With Oxford Hills’ home field still soaked, Edward Little agreed to meet the Vikings almost halfway to play Saturday’s game at Hayward Diamond on the campus of Hebron Academy.

EL continued to play the gracious guest for the first two innings, spotting Oxford Hills a 4-0 lead. Then the Red Eddies put on their hitting shoes.

The Eddies used clutch hitting and a gutsy complete game effort from starter Chris Merrill to knock off the Vikings, 8-5, and pick up some critical Heal points that could virtually assure them a home game in the tournament.

Brian Erickson and Robie Leighton cracked three hits apiece for EL, which scored all eight of its runs with two out. Chris Jennings collected three hits for the Vikings.

The Eddies’ offense and defense both looked sharp despite going more than a week since their last game. The offense totaled 12 hits, four for extra bases, and the defense played errorless baseball, while the Vikings (11-3) committed two miscues that led directly to three runs.

“We were mildly nervous, to say the least. It’s really hard to have a week off,” said EL coach Scott Annear, whose team has now won eight of its last 10 and to go to 10-4. “It’s not just not playing because you have that routine, it’s not being out on the field. We cracked the whip pretty hard on them the last couple of days in practice, and they’re so awesome at policing themselves. How much can you do (inside)? Just hit and take ground balls, hit and take ground balls. They’re tired of running stairs.”

“I’ve got to give them credit. They hit the ball well and they didn’t make the big mistake,” said Vikings coach Shane Slicer. “I think we needed to capitalize on a few things and we just didn’t do it.”

Trailing 4-1 in the fourth, the Eddies batted around, scoring a run on a hit batter, a two-run throwing error by the shortstop and an RBI single by Erickson, to take a 5-4 lead. The Vikings tied the game off Merrill (seven innings, 10 hits, five Ks, two walks) in the bottom of the fourth on Kyle Keniston’s RBI triple.

“I had to battle through the first couple of innings, but after that, my teammates got some runs and I settled down a little bit,” Merrill said. “This is my third game and this was definitely the toughest lineup I had to work through.”

EL took the lead for good in the fifth. David Lutz tripled to left with one out. Matt Nadeau’s fly to center was too shallow for him to tag up, but Kyle Giguere delivered the go-ahead run with a ground-rule double to left. Leighton followed with a double of his own to make it 7-5.

“We just hung tough. They made some super adjustments at the plate,” Annear said of his hitters. “We had a couple of talks about the approach that we’ve got to have and they adjusted phenomenally.”

“Our inability to get that third out really killed us,” said Slicer. “And then we turned around and left guys on second and third with none out.”

Oxford Hills threatened to tie it in the bottom of the fifth, putting men on second and third with nobody out. But after a mound visit from Annear, Merrill fanned Derek Varney swinging, got a nice leaping catch by first baseman Derek Doucette on a Ben Ryerson liner, then fielded a grounder back to the box cleanly to get out of the jam.

“That shows how tough of a kid he is. He’s such a heady pitcher,” Annear said. “Your natural tendency is to get a little nervous, so I just went out and said Let’s get some air. Just breathe a little bit. I don’t need to adjust your approach. Just get some air.'”

Merrill took a deep breath and retired nine of the last 11 hitters of the game, yielding just an infield single and a walk.