GRAY – Owen Chaplin arrived at the field early for Gray-New Gloucester’s Western Maine Conference opener with North Yarmouth Academy, but not because he was eager to get the season going. After scuffling through the preseason, Chaplin was hoping to get in a few more practice swings off the tee before facing some live pitching.

The extra work provided dividends as Chaplin drove in the tying and winning runs with a two-out single in the bottom of the seventh inning to complete the Patriots’ 4-3 comeback win Saturday.

“I got here about three hours before the game started and was hitting off the tee. It definitely paid off,” Chaplin said. “It’s a big confidence boost for our team after we had a slow start at the beginning of last year.”

With the bases loaded, Chaplin pulled a 1-2 pitch from NYA starter Devin Darien and lined it over the third baseman’s head and just inside the chalk down the left field line.

“It was inside and I just turned on it,” he said. “First hit of the season.”

“The kids didn’t quit. Not one kid in that dugout thought we weren’t going to win this game,” G-NG coach Aaron Talon said.

Chaplin’s game-winner capped a wild seventh inning that trumped an excellent pitching duel between Darien and G-NG starter Joe Billings for the first six frames.

Billings (seven innings, six hits, seven strikeouts, four walks) overcame some bouts of control trouble to keep the Panthers off the scoreboard through the first six. He got some help in the sixth when Taylor Valente gunned down Darien at home plate on a Toey LeBlanc single to preserve the scoreless tie.

“That’s what I expect of Joe,” Talon said. “Joe’s a good pitcher. He’s pitched for me for three years now, through high school and Legion ball. He’s a senior this year. He knows what he has to do.”

Darien (6 2/3 innings, five hits, eight Ks, three walks) had a perfect game going for the first 5 2/3, then Jesse Ordway (two hits) lined a clean single past a diving LeBlanc at first. Trevor McCutcheon followed with a seeing-eye single up the middle, but Darien worked out of further trouble by getting Cody Humphrey to ground into a force out.

“He pitched really good. He was hitting his corners and we just couldn’t stay back on his pitches,” Chaplin said. “He caught a lot of us lunging”

NYA loaded the bases with one out in the seventh when Alan Brown broke the deadlock, scoring Sam Hutchinson on a perfect suicide squeeze bunt that rolled about 10 feet down the first base line.

The Panthers added insurance when Jordan Haskell’s grounder to short ate up Chaplin and bounced towards the second base bag and allowed Jeff Cheney and Peter Hyndman to score.

Taylor Valente sparked the Patriots’ comeback with a towering home run to left to lead off the bottom of the seventh. Two walks and a single loaded the bases. McCutcheon made it 3-2 when he grounded into a force out at third to plate Billings. Humphrey flew out to center for the second out, then pinch hitter Heath Martell walked to load the bases again and set the table for Chaplin.

NYA, which lost its opener, 5-2, earlier in the week to another Class B team, Yarmouth, fell to 0-2 on the young season.

“If we can play this way with the Class B teams, we’ll be okay,” NYA coach Alan King said. “That was a great pitching matchup.”