POLAND — The program that lost multiple seasons, forfeited doubleheaders and has generally struggled to regain its identity in Zone 3 American Legion baseball is showing signs of life.

William J. Rogers Post 153 continued its climb back into the race for a state tournament berth Thursday night, riding the middle of its order and Tucker Beaudoin’s right arm to a 4-2 victory over Mechanic Falls Post 150.

Beaudoin struck out four, didn’t issue a walk and shut out Mechanic Falls until the bottom of the sixth inning.

“It started off a little rough but we came together,” Beaudoin, a 2011 Lewiston graduate, said of the season. “People started coming to all the games. We’ve got a good lineup. The chemistry is better.”

Rogers (4-5) backed Beaudoin with one run in the first inning, two in the third and one in the fourth.

Josh Delong, John Simpson and James Jackson each had two hits. Leadoff hitter Nate Blais singled, stole two bases and scored twice.

“We’re playing together as a group. Instead of playing for ourselves, we’re going to the plate with a purpose,” Rogers coach Troy Crane said. “We’ve been working on let’s control the inside. If we can control what’s inside and it doesn’t come out on the field, we gain respect.”

Twice in recent years the New Auburn zone failed to field a team in Zone 3, most recently in 2010. Even after resurrecting the team a year ago, it was a struggle to consistently find the bodies needed to fill out a lineup card.

But Thursday there were as many players standing and cheering on the bench as on the field. Beaudoin is one of three Lewiston players on the club. The rest are Edward Little post grads or current EL and St. Dom’s products.

“One thing we have done this year is have a good time. That’s something that we haven’t done the past couple years,” Crane said. “Hopefully they carry that over into the high school program. It’s supposed to be fun. There are plenty of other things a kid could be doing all summer.”

Delong’s sacrifice fly plated Blais after a single, a steal and a throwing error — the first of four Mechanic Falls miscues — in the first.

It was a Delong double off Zak Johnson that lit the fuse in the third. Simpson and Jackson followed with singles. Beaudoin’s groundout also produced a run.

Mechanic Falls extended the Rogers fourth with another throwing error, setting up Delong’s RBI single.

“Twenty-one outs are what we’re looking to get and unfortunately we probably gave them 27,” Mechanic Falls coach Don King said. “Zak I thought pitched well enough to survive the game. He was pitching fine. We didn’t do what we needed to do behind him.”

Kyle Hargreaves’ leadoff single and a screamer by Johnson that skipped over third base for a double began solving the Beaudoin riddle in the Mechanic Falls sixth.

Corey Cunliffe broke up the shutout with a sacrifice fly, and Connor King’s third hit of the game produced another run.

Mechanic Falls (4-6) brought the potential tying run to the plate in both the sixth and seventh innings.

Beaudoin fanned Luke Johnson to escape the sixth. He coaxed a fly to shallow center from Hargreaves to end it on the seventh on only 82 pitches.

“That just doesn’t happen very often,” Crane said of the tidy pitch count. “Tuck’s been solid all season long. These guys beat us 8-5 the first time but I think we made seven errors. Two of our losses we completely beat ourselves.”

koakes@sunjournal.com

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