Much to the Patriots’ delight, neither trend continued.
Gray-New Gloucester used aggressive baserunning to rattle Simard while Nielsen settled down for a solid 6 1/3 innings as the Patriots opened the Western Maine Conference baseball season with an 8-4 victory over the Knights on Friday.
Nielsen, a junior, gave up two earned run on five hits while fanning four and walking two in 6 1/3 innings. He threw 114 pitches before giving way to Pat Robinson, who got the last two outs.
“I think the first couple of innings it was just some butterflies, then I got them out,” Nielsen said. “There were a few bloopers early, and that never helps a pitcher out. It’s frustrating, but once you get past that and we started getting the bats going, then I started to settle in and just cruised through the rest of the way.”
Shawn Murphy’s bloop single landed between the shortstop, third baseman and left fielder in short left field and gave the Knights a 1-0 lead in the first inning. In the third, Simard scored all the way from second when Dillon Douglass beat out a potential double play grounder to make it a 2-0 game.
Simard, meanwhile, rolled through the first three innings, retiring the first nine batters he faced. It began to unravel, however, when Kevin Cavallaro reached on an error by the third baseman to start the fourth inning. After Justin McKenna singled to move him up to second, Cavallaro stole third.
On the next pitch, McKenna broke for second with the pitch, drawing a throw. Cavallaro beat the shortstop’s throw home to get the Patriots on the board. McKenna then moved up to third on a ball in the dirt and came home to tie the game when the catcher’s throw went wide of the bag. Nielsen then doubled, moved to third on a wild pitch and put the Patriots in the lead for good on Tim Larette’s sacrifice fly to left.
“That first-and-third (double steal) I think caught some people a little by surprise,” first-year Gray-New Gloucester coach Brad Smith said. “I think that was the catalyst that we needed. The kids executed it flawlessly.”
“One error and the balloon popped,” Poland coach Mike Connor said. “We came out hitting the ball all over the park and playing with swagger and I was impressed. It was a bunch of sophomores going out and playing like they’ve been doing it forever and then it all came tumbling down.”
The Patriots got five more runs in the fifth courtesy of three walks and a pair of wild pitches by Simard and reliever Bill Bickford, as well as a passed ball. Ethan Ridge had a sacrifice fly and Adam Healy drove in a pair with an infield single.
Nielsen went on to retire eight in a row and would have extended that streak but for a pair of errors behind him.
“This was uncharacteristic,” Smith said of Nielsen’s early struggles. “I knew if we could hang with this club that he would settle down.”
“My key was getting the fastball in for strike one and then building my change-up and slider off that,” Nielsen said. “That’s when it started to work out for me.”
McKenna had two hits to lead the Patriots and scored a pair of runs. Nielsen had a double and scored twice. Simard went 3-for-4 with a double and three runs scored.
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- Gray New Gloucester’s Kevin Cavallaro slides into home safely before Poland catcher Dillon Douglass can apply the tag during a double steal Friday afternoon.
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- Gray New Gloucester’s Austen Keenan dives head first into second with a stolen base during Friday afternoon’s game.
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- Poland pitcher Jake Simard, left and catcher Dillon Douglass colide while each other as they converge on a pop fly during Friday afternoon’s game. Simard held on to the ball for the out.
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- Poland’s C.J. Martin slides into second with a stolen base ahead of the throw to Gray New Gloucester’s Adam Healy during Friday’s game.
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