TURNER — Leavitt feasted on a steady diet of fastballs in opening-week KVAC baseball wins over Oak Hill and Gardiner.

Morse sophomore Liam McDonough fed the Hornets the more tricky two-seam variety, one with a sinking action that might have been magnified by Tuesday’s blustery conditions.

Trying to make contact was like an exercise in eating gelatin with chopsticks. Leavitt went hitless until the fifth inning of an 8-1 Shipbuilders rout.

McDonough allowed two hits, struck out three and didn’t issue a walk. He faced 23 batters, two beyond the minimum.

“I just came in and felt good I guess,” McDonough said. “Threw strikes and thedefense took care of the rest.”

Fourteen of Leavitt’s 21 outs were ground balls. In addition to the whiffs there were two fly outs, a weak pop out and an inning-ending out on the base paths.

“With the rain yesterday we had to switch some things around. I’m pretty proud of him,” Morse coach Rick Davis said. “He played varsity for us last year, but he wasn’t a starting pitcher. He said he could start today and I didn’t argue with him.”

Pinch hitter Brandon Macdonald broke up McDonough’s no-hitter with two out in the fifth, only to be thrown out by two steps at second thanks to a perfect strike from right fielder Andrew Doughty to shortstop Zack Groat.

Josh Bunker scored on a Jake Irish groundout after a leadoff single in the sixth.

“You have to tip your hat to the pitcher. He threw a great game. I don’t know how many ground balls we hit right at people,” Leavitt coach Dave Bochtler said. “You get a guy who throws that sinker when our grass is kind of long and everything is slow, it’s going to slow the game down.”

Morse (2-0) staked its young right-hander to an early lead that grew in healthy chunks.

Cody Hardin scored on a balk after a one-out walk in the first, advanced by a wild pitch and Groat’s single. McDonough later plated Groat with a grounder to second.

Gary Stevens took advantage of another walk the next inning. He moved up on a stolen base and a wild pitch. Trenton Moore’s single to right made it 3-0.

Those were the only runs scored against Leavitt senior Mike Smith, whose three-plus innings were notable for being his first outing since middle school.

“He hasn’t even played baseball,“ Bochtler said. “The second kid (Mitchell Davis) was a freshman. I’ve got five games in seven days so I’ve got to save some arms. We didn’t help ourselves out in the field.”

Leavitt (2-1) committed three of its four errors in the fifth inning alone, costing Davis three runs.

Wade Hunt walked and McDonough reached on a throwing error. Both scored after Leavitt booted Ethan Winglass’ grounder. Chris Luedee then delivered an RBI single.

The lead crested at 8-0 in the top of the sixth. Winglass had a base hit to score Hardin. Hunt scampered home on the back end of a double steal with Winglass.

Other than the hiccup in the sixth — and a passed ball that moved Bunker to second probably cost him the shutout — McDonough was in total command from start to finish. He retired the first nine Hornets as well as the final six.

“This is our first season in Class B,” McDonough said. “I think we could’ve had a good season in Class A, but it will be nice change for us. We never beat these guys in anything.”

Three of Leavitt’s four remaining games in this compressed early stretch are on the road, including today at Maranacook.

“I didn’t think we were going to go undefeated,” Bochtler said. “I do think we can play better baseball than this.”

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