WALES – Don’t give up on the Oak Hill High School baseball team just yet.

Home bats delivered only four base hits in Monday’s 12-1 KVAC Class B loss to Mt. View of Thorndike. The Raiders (0-2) booted and misfired the ball around Fairchild Field to the tune of seven errors.

After last spring, however, nobody is panicking. Remember, the Raiders rebounded from a 4-5 start and wrapped their hands around a state championship trophy.

“It’s going to take somebody to step up and be a leader, and once we do that I think we’re going to be all right. I think we’ve got a good team,” said Oak Hill coach Chad Drouin.

With seven seniors and seven juniors in its dugout, Mt. View (2-0) is more experienced at the moment. And the only sophomore, Cody Raven, was splendid in his first varsity pitching start.

Raven struck out three and walked only two over the six-inning route. He also ripped two of the Mustangs’ 14 hits at the expense of four Oak Hill pitchers.

“I think we’re going to be pretty dominant,” Raven said.

Mt. View plated two runs in the second inning, three in the fourth, five in the fifth and two in the sixth to invoke the 10-run rule. Ethan Jean went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Ben Raven cracked a pair of hits and crossed the plate four times.

“We’re not trying to do too much with the ball, just put it in play,” said Mt. View coach Penson Bartlett. “The ball found some open spots today.”

Time and space weren’t as friendly to the Raiders.

Derek Keller stabbed a line drive off Corey Seguin’s bat to trigger an inning-ending double play in the second. Tyler Miles robbed Ethan Guerette with a diving catch in center field to deny the Raiders at least two runs in the fifth.

Brandon Plourde was 2-for-3 for Oak Hill, knocking home a run in the fourth.

Chris Ellis (one shutout inning) and freshman Brett Turcotte pitched tidy relief for the Raiders.

“I could have gone with Ellis and probably made that a much closer game,” Drouin said. “But I don’t think we came out to play today, and I figured hey, this early in the season, let’s see what the young guys can do.”

The loss was Oak Hill’s second stop in a stretch of four games in five days to christen the weather-delayed campaign. With Ellis and ace Josh Jillson scheduled to take the hill Tuesday and Wednesday, the Raiders could be back at the break-even point in short order.

“We played four games in Connecticut, and the guys showed a lot of composure and leadership down there. Today, they didn’t show it,” Drouin said. “We’ve got to get that back. This has been the quietest dugout I’ve ever coached.”