AUBURN — Helped by long bus rides south, creative scheduling and some marathon, cold days, Edward Little baseball overcame the lack of outdoor time that plagued other tri-county teams this preseason.

“I don’t know how many games, but we had 50 innings, I think,” sophomore shortstop Jarod Norcross-Plourde said.

It showed Wednesday, when EL rolled to a 15-5 season-opening win over Lewiston in a KVAC “road” game on its home turf at Austin Field. The game was moved when Tuesday’s rain made Deschenes Field at LHS unplayable.

Norcross-Plourde and Elijah Roe each went 4-for-5. Roe belted a double, drove in three runs and scored three. Norcross-Plourde was a home run away from the cycle, crossed the plate four times and notched a pair of RBIs.

“They can hit the crap out of the ball,” Lewiston coach Andrew Cessario said. “We made some defensive blunders, but you’ve got to tip your cap to the middle-of-the-order guys who can just drive the ball to the opposite field.”

EL senior ace Lew Jensen rebounded from a rocky, four-run first inning to strike out eight against seven walks over 6 1/3 innings. Jensen combined with sophomore Damien St. Pierre on a one-hitter.

“Opening day, Lewiston, I think everyone was a little too hyped up, and then we settled down. You have those first-game jitters, and then when you throw Lewiston into the mix, holy cow,” Jensen said. “I kind of pounded the outside corner, just pitched to contact, and we made the plays.”

The Red Eddies banged out 13 hits and took advantage of eight Lewiston errors.

Carter Chabot had the lone hit for the Blue Devils, a leadoff single in the third which Norcross-Plourde knocked down with a diving bid to his left but couldn’t complete the throw.

It was a triumphant debut for EL coach Dave Jordan, who replaced longtime Red Eddies skipper Scott Annear after leading Lewiston to a pair of Class A East playoff appearances.

“We’ve been talking about resiliency, and in a way it was kind of a good test for us right off the bat to see the guys battle back and get some runners on base and battle through that,” Jordan said. “First game out, playing your rival, you just try to simplify it a little more and know your defense is behind you. I think Lew settled in and did a pretty nice job.”

Ryan Bell, Brady Cusson, Mike Wong and Austin Wing all scored for Lewiston in the bottom of the first on the strength of three walks, a hit batsman, two wild pitches, a botched fielder’s choice and a Corey Harvey squeeze bunt.

Jensen stuck out Nick Powers to escape additional damage, and EL tied it with four in the second inning before taking the lead for keeps with two in the third.

“We had them on the ropes early, bunting and stealing and safety-squeezing. The energy level was really, really high. I felt maybe we had to amp down a little bit,” Cessario said. “They just answered right back, and we could never really get that answer to take the lead. They had the energy and they had the enthusiasm. They built upon that inning.”

Norcross-Plourde’s triple and Roe’s double against Lewiston starter Wong — consecutive clouts over the right fielder’s head — provided the thunder after Jensen drew a leadoff walk.

Brandon Knapp cut the deficit to 4-3 with a groundout, and Luke Sterling scored the tying run on the back end of a double steal with Austin Cox.

“I’m seeing the ball pretty well right now. The first inning was kind of nerve-wracking, but once I got the hit I settled in,” Roe said. “We got that (start) out of our system. We just had to dig down deep after getting down four runs, but we did it.”

Jensen walked again in the third. He advanced on a Norcross-Plourde single to center, then scored when a fake-to-third, fake-to-first, throw-to-third sequence from Wong sailed out of play.

Roe’s single set up Norcross-Plourde to score on a wild pitch.

Although Chabot was wiped out by a fielder’s choice, Wing later scored on a wild pitch to make it 6-5 in the Lewiston third. 

Powers’ leadoff walk in the fourth was nullified when Brandon Varney threw him out on an attempted steal of second. The Eddies went on a rampage with two runs in the fifth, five in the sixth and two in the seventh thereafter.

“There were a couple of chances on the basepaths we had that I feel like I kind of ran us into an out, but you learn from those things,” Cessario said after his first game as a varsity coach. “We still are yet to get on our field. I’m not saying that’s an excuse, but there are a lot of things we can do outside that are going to help us down the road.”

Jensen also benefited from a Norcross-Plourde to Drew Lashua to Roe double play in the fifth. He struck out the side after the first two Devils reached base in the sixth.

Varney, Cox, Lashua, Knapp and Tyler Blanchard all joined the EL hit parade. Wong worked into the fifth for Lewiston.

“They’ve really come on, especially in the last week in terms of swinging the bat,” Jordan said. “I think we just got to the point where we started timing (Wong) out pretty good. He wasn’t sneaking it by us, but he battled for them, that’s for sure.”

“We’ve talked about our two-out hits, and I think everybody contributed to that today,” Jensen added. 

koakes@sunjournal.com

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