LEWISTON – Coming off a big win over Waterville on Tuesday, Lewiston still had to regard Wednesday’s KVAC regular-season finale with Medomak Valley as a must win because of the tenuousness of its hold on one of the last Eastern Class A playoff slots.
There was still uncertainty after Nate Gruz drove in the winning run in the sixth inning of Lewiston’s 3-2 win over low-ranked Medomak, but at least the Blue Devils left Franklin Pasture knowing they’d done their part to secure their first non-open tournament playoff berth since 1992.
“There’s not much else we can do now, just wait and see,” said Lewiston pitcher Nick Langlais, who threw a complete game four-hitter to get the win for the Blue Devils.
Lewiston entered the week ranked 13th in the Eastern A Heal Points, about 1.5 points ahead of No. 14 Lawrence in the tournament index. The Devils got a big boost from the win over No. 10 Waterville, but Lawrence picked up a bushel of points Monday by beating No. 2 Mt. Ararat.
“I told the guys before the game you don’t know what’s going to happen. All we can do is what we can do – win this one and let everyone else play it out,” Lewiston coach Don King said.
Nate Gruz (two hits) drove in the winning run with a two-out, soft-liner drive that dropped just beyond the diving second baseman. He had a chance to give the Devils (8-8) the lead two innings earlier when he stepped up with the bases loaded and one out. That time, he hit a rope right at the second baseman, who promptly doubled up the runner at first to end that threat.
“I’m happy for Nate,” King said. “He’s got a great attitude and he works awfully hard. He’s hit the ball hard lately, but sometimes you hit it hard and you get out, and then you hit a little bleeder and you win it. We’ll take it.”
Both of Lewiston’s run-scoring hits proved baseball is a game of inches. Trailing 2-0, the Devils loaded the bases with two outs. Brian Nason then slapped the first pitch he saw to the opposite field. The ball dropped just in front of the diving left-fielder, allowing two runs to score.
Medomak, which played a second game at Franklin against Leavitt immediately following the loss to Lewiston, touched Langlais for all four of its hits in the first three innings. The Panthers got a run in the second on a single and a bobble by the left fielder, then made it 2-0 in the third on Matt Taylor’s RBI single.
Langlais (nine Ks, two walks) found his groove after that, throwing his curve for strikes and keeping the Panthers off-balance with a sneaky fastball to retire 14 of the final 16 hitters.
“I was a little stiff at the beginning. I haven’t been throwing a lot because of all the rain,” Langlais said. “It just took me a couple of innings to hit my spots and find the curve ball.”
“The formula with him has been to let him go until the second or third time through the lineup, when guys start to hit the ball hard, but today he just kept going,” King said. “(Zack) Timmermeyer probably threw two games in the bullpen getting ready to go because he was coming next, but we didn’t need to go to him.”
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