WALES — Oak Hill has been the “almost” team in its first season of Mountain Valley Conference baseball.

“It’s been a long year of losing the close ones,” Raiders coach Matt Bray said. “We had St. Dom’s on the ropes. We had Spruce Mountain on the ropes. We just haven’t been able to finish.”

Again on a cold. windy Wednesday, the Raiders stood toe-to-toe with an MVC heavyweight and finally landed the knockout punch. Back-to-back triples by Brady Dion and Parker Asselin highlighted a three-run fifth inning, rallying Oak Hill to a 4-3 victory over Monmouth at Bill Fairchild Field.

Oak Hill also received a brilliant relief effort from Jake Martin, who followed Asselin with three innings of two-hit, shutout ball to pick up the win.

Martin struck out three Mustangs, all looking.

“I haven’t been pitching much. I felt scared at first. They’re a big team,” Martin said. “Then we scored some runs. I got my confidence back and threw all I could.”

It was the first meeting of neighboring rivals Oak Hill (5-5) and Monmouth (8-3) on the diamond since 1995, when the old Mid-Maine Conference dissolved.

The Mustangs enjoyed the early edge with a run in the first inning and two more in the third.

Kyle Fletcher’s leadoff double, a wild pitch and Billy Cummings’ sacrifice fly gave Monmouth a lead out of the gate.

Phil Rowe led off the third with a single and a stolen base. Fletcher beat out a bunt, with Rowe scoring after Asselin’s throw sailed wide of first.

Cummings sliced an RBI single down the left field line before Asselin escaped the inning by coaxing Alex Curtis into a 6-4-3 double play.

“I felt alright. (A couple of) innings were a little rough,” Asselin said. “Jake came in and pitched a heck of a game the last three innings.

Asselin retired the side in order in the fourth, and Martin allowed only infield singles to Brett Wilson and Josh Fournier.

“I’ve been saying it all year and it’s absolutely true: We’ve got four kids I trust 100 percent every time they pitch. Ryan Riordan gets all the attention because he’s great. But we’ve got four kids who can throw strikes,” Bray said. “Jake’s curveball really makes him deadly, especially coming in after Parker, who hammers the zone with fastballs.”

Oak Hill’s offense came to life against Monmouth starter Brandon Goff in the fourth.

Asselin fought off two potential third strikes with foul balls before being hit by a pitch. Riordan ripped Goff’s next offering to the gap in left center for a double that cut the deficit to 3-1.

Goff struck out Dalton Burns to open the fifth, but two grounders between third base and shortstop opened the floodgates.

Dalton Therrien beat out the first for a single. The second chopper by Jake Bannister threw a late, errant throw and put two in scoring position for Dion, who tied it with his three-bagger to the right field corner.

Asselin ended Goff’s day with another rocket to the fence. He unknowingly ran through Bray’s stop sign but still made it underneath Fournier’s tag at third.

“He left a couple of fastballs up and that was it,” Monmouth coach Eric Palleschi said of Goff. “It’s good though. That’s the first time he’s thrown this year.”

Wilson retired five of the six Raiders he faced in relief.

Therrien, Dion and Riordan each had two hits for Oak Hill, which rounds out a stretch of four games in five days against Dirigo (Thursday) and Telstar (Friday).

“We’ve been saving (Martin) for this time of the year, because we knew we were going to need pitchers with four games this week. It was really important to get him in, and he came in and did a really good job,” Bray said. “We want to win the week. We were close Monday (a 6-4 loss to Winthrop). We want to win three out of four.”

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