BRUNSWICK – The suicide squeeze was on. Oxford Hills knew it and had it defended almost perfectly. And the bunt by Brunswick pinch hitter Sam Feldman was virtually the antithesis of what the situation calls for in a tie game.

It worked anyway.

Feldman’s bases-loaded bunt in the bottom of the seventh was good enough to get the winning run home and give Brunswick a stunning 2-1 victory over Oxford Hills in Monday’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference opener.

Back-to-back singles with one out put the winning run at third. An intentional walk to designated hitter Anthony Viola loaded the bases, then Brunswick coach Peter Blake went to the bench and summoned a hobbled Feldman to win the game.

“He’s one of our better bunters. He took the day off because his ankle is a little tender,” Blake said. “The minute I looked over and asked who could lay one down, he raised his hand, and he got the job done. It wasn’t pretty.”

It was pretty close to a double play, actually. Feldman, who had fouled his first bunt attempt back and just out of the reach of catcher Matt Verrier, got his second attempt airborne as well. Viking first baseman Dan Millett was charging hard and overran the ball slightly, causing it to bounce off his glove as he reached over his head. The ball stayed in the air for a tantalizing moment, allowing Millett to make one last diving attempt to catch it in front of the mound, but he couldn’t reach it. Pinch runner David Fisk crossed the plate with the winning run.

“It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but I’ll take it,” Feldman said. “I can’t really run. If I’d had to hit, I’d have been left a little in the dark there.”

The squeeze play made David Longley the winner of a scintillating pitching duel with the Vikings’ Ryan Yates. Longley (seven innings, five hits, four Ks, one walk) yielded Oxford Hills’ only run on a Cody Hadley triple and Justin Frechette sacrifice fly in the first. He then frustrated the Vikings by stranding a runner in scoring position in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.

“David did a great job,” Blake said. “We actually nicknamed him ‘Bulldog.’ He loves to have the ball in his hands, and when he does, we feel like we can beat anybody.”

“Their lineup did a great job today,” said Longley. “I tried to work them in all the spots and they were still ripping it.”

Longley stranded Verrier at second in the fourth after Yates just missed hitting one over the left field fence. Nigel Cromwell (two hits) got no further than third after his two-out double and a passed ball put him there in the fifth. And a leadoff double by Verrier in the sixth went for naught when Longley got the next three batters to ground out.

“We hit the ball a little bit better than they did. We just didn’t execute. We didn’t get timely hits,” Oxford Hills coach Shane Slicer said. “We had a guy at second, nobody out, and didn’t get a bunt down, and managed to get nothing out of the whole inning. We had guys in scoring position a few times and got nothing out of it. You’ve got to give Longley credit. You give up one run, you’re going to win games.”

“It took a lot for me to buckle down, but mainly my defense came up with some huge plays behind me,” Longley said. “It’s great to start the season with a win against one of the best teams in our league.”

Brunswick hit just four balls out of the infield against Yates (four hits, nine Ks, one intentional walk). The first was a Matt Liscovitz double that scored Sam Guerrette with the tying run after Guerrette reached on an error with two out in the third. Yates sent down 11 Dragons in a row after that, until Duncan Lowe’s infield single started the trouble in the seventh.