GORHAM – Injuries, a near-crushing opening round loss, plus a stop-and-start schedule caused by seemingly unending rain weren’t enough to stop Bessey Motors. But Nova Seafood was.

The eventual state champions (see related story) handed Bessey its second loss of the double-elimination American Legion Baseball state tournament, 7-2, Saturday afternoon.

Behind some strong pitching from Dillon Trundy, Bessey hung around for much of the game, trailing by two runs after six innings. But Nova’s Jack Young kept the Zone 3 runners-up off-balance and quieted what had been one of the more potent offenses in the tournament.

“We’d been hitting the ball extremely well. We just couldn’t string some together today. That’s the thing that killed us,” Bessey coach Shane Slicer said. “I thought if we could get Dillon to give up just five runs, we’d have a chance because we’ve been hitting the ball. But they did a good job defensively, and we just didn’t get any clutch hits. We ran into the best team in the tournament.”

Young allowed five hits in six innings, then turned it over to his bullpen to close it out after the offense broke open what had been a 3-1 game.

“We weren’t really out of our league. They just threw something different at us today,” Trundy said. “They threw a lot more curves than fastballs. The last couple of pitchers we saw gave us a lot more fastballs.”

Nova grabbed a 3-0 lead in the third on hits by Jack Heary and Matt Watson, plus a Bessey error. Trundy kept runners in scoring position from coming around to add to the lead in each of the next three innings, and Cody Hadley pulled Bessey within two with an RBI single in the sixth.

Marc Ouimet (RBI single) and Cameron Sprague (RBI double) made it 5-1 in the seventh. Nova got two more in the eighth on back-to-back doubles by Watson and Taylor Candage off Hadley.

“They’re a great hitting team,” Trundy said. “They’ve got a lot of big kids on their team, so they can really put a sting on the ball when they get ahold of it.”

Dan Millett and Aaron Chase had two hits apiece for Bessey, which finished the season at 19-8-1. Evan Humphrey was named to the all-tournament team.