They’ve been practicing for the last month in places where the foul lines are 15 feet from a basketball hoop, so the Poland Knights’ checklist for Thursday’s season-opener in the great outdoors was simple:

1 – Win

2 – Stretch out some arms

3 – Make the routine plays in the field

4 – Get some dirt on the uniform

The defending Western Maine Conference champions accomplished all of the above and doubled-up a shorthanded Freeport squad, 6-3.

Nick Douglass collected three hits and scored twice for the Knights. Four Poland pitchers, led by Joe Murphy, scattered five Freeport hits and benefited from crisp defense. The Knights’ only error came on a wild pickoff attempt.

“I just wanted our guys to go out and throw strikes, get some bat on the ball, run the bases, fielding the ball… all those little things just to get used to it,” said Poland coach Dave Jordan, whose team had played a couple of exhibition road games outdoors this week but had yet to step on its home diamond before Thursday. “Overall, I was happy. We had some early-season mistakes here and there, but you expect that.”

Poland jumped on Freeport starter Bejay Perkins for four runs, two of them unearned, in the first inning. Kyle Kyllonen was the only batter to hit the ball out of the infield, dropping a double down the right field line. But two infield errors, a wild pitch and four walks helped the Knights gain the early cushion.

Perkins (complete game) settled down nicely after the first. Freeport, which was missing five players, including four starters, due to ineligibility, couldn’t get anything going in the first four innings against Douglass or reliever Joe Murphy.

“We had a freshman playing over at first, one at third, so we really had some youth out there, and our centerfielder was catching today because of eligibility issues,” Freeport coach Hank Ogilvy said. “We got a great pitching performance from Bejay, who can pitch against anybody.”

Murphy, who picked up the win, looked sharp for his first outing (three innings, two hits, one walk), setting down the Falcons in order in the third and fourth. The Knights led 5-0 when Douglass scored from second on Ben Piper’s infield hit.

The Falcons were finally able to get on the board on Jon Arris’ RBI single in the fifth. Poland got the run back in the bottom of the frame on Jackie MacVane’s RBI single, but Freeport kept plugging away, pushing a run across on freshman Zach Engel’s two-out infield single in the sixth against reliever Casey Ray. Arris drove in another run in the seventh to cut the lead in half, but Mike Littlefield slammed the door with a strikeout and ground out.

With the graduation of 2007 Western Maine Conference Player of the Year Joe Douglass and several other starters, the Knights have been projected by some observers to drop off a bit this year after spending the last three years among the WMC elite.

“We have a good group of kids this year with a lot of talent,” Murphy said. “We lost a lot of talent, but a lot of talent came back and came up through. We’ve been playing together for a long time, so we hope the season goes good.”