Baseball: Oxford Hills outduels Edward Little, erupts for 7 runs in fifth

NORWAY — So far this spring, the weather has made it difficult for baseball teams to practice outdoors, much less play games.

So it’s difficult to make too much of the sporadic games of the first few weeks of the season. But a win is a win, and for Oxford Hills, a win over Edward Little means something.

Two big innings propelled the Vikings to a 12-2, five-inning win over the Red Eddies on Wednesday at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

“That’s what we needed because EL, they’re kind of our rivals, they knocked us out of the playoffs two years in a row,” Oxford Hills junior second baseman Brady Truman said. “So to get a big win like that over their ace early in the season — last year we lost our first one against them, so it’s good to get our momentum going into the rest of the season. We’ve still got a lot of games left.”

Truman started the fifth with a leadoff double and then ended it with a walk-off RBI triple, off Edward Little left-handed reliever Owen Scott, that scored Kolby Brown.

“Normally, lefty-lefty, I struggle with, but today I hit it well,” the left-handed hitting Truman said. “And I saw that one — I don’t know, I thought that guy was going to catch it, we’ve got a lot of room out here, but it felt good off the bat.

“I was wheeling around the bases, I kind of forgot it was a walk-off, it was a weird time for it.”

Wednesday’s game was slated to be an Edward Little home game at Auburn Suburban, but wet fields forced it earlier in the day to be changed to a home game for Oxford Hills and to be played at the school, rather than the Vikings’ traditional home field at Gouin Athletic Complex. Therefore, there wasn’t an outfield fence and there wasn’t a scoreboard to inform the teams exactly what the score was.

Though the Vikings (2-0) did most of the damage against relievers in the fifth inning, they also made Red Eddies (1-2) ace Drew Smith work through the first four innings.

Against Smith, Oxford Hills drew seven walks and manufactured five runs through walks, sacrifices, passed balls and three singles.

“Drew is hard to hit, so the approach has to be to see him a little bit, you know? Don’t give up outs, swing at crap, just make him work a little bit, get him on the stretch,” Vikings coach Shane Slicer said. “And he didn’t throw poorly at all … but we made him throw, so I think his pitch count got up, and he did give up a couple walks, so being up, getting a lead (helped).”

Smith struck out three and walked one in the first inning. In the second, the Vikings walked four times and scored the game’s first run on a sacrifice by No. 9 hitter Cameron Pulkkinen. Smith worked out of a bases-loaded jam to end the threat.

Edward Little answered in the top of the third when Peyton Dyer singled and scored from second on a single by TJ Kramarz.

In the bottom of the third, Brown singled, advanced to third on a pair of passed balls, then scored on a sacrifice by Truman to put the Vikings up 2-1.

Oxford Hills added three more runs in its half of the fourth. Hunter Tardiff scored from second on Pulkkinen’s single, then Pulkkinen scored on a passed ball. Carter Holbrook singled and reached home on a double steal when Eli Soehren took second.

That gave the Vikings a 5-1 lead, and after Smith got the final out, his outing was over. The junior, who has committed to play at UConn, struck out six and allowed three hits.

Dyer also scored the Red Eddies’ second run, sprinting home from second on a single by Campbell Cassidy, to cut the deficit to 5-2 in the fifth inning.

The Vikings appeared ready to lift Brown before the sixth inning, but they wouldn’t get a chance.

Brown fanned three, walked three and allowed four hits and two runs in five innings.

“Kolby just kind of settled in,” Slicer said. “It was nothing awesome, but give up one run, get out of trouble, get through the lower part of the order, then give up another run. And we just kept answering.

“Obviously, I wasn’t expecting that last inning to explode.”

After Truman led off the bottom of the fifth with a double, he advanced to third on a Connor Fitts sacrifice, and then scored on a sacrifice by Tardiff, extending the lead to 6-2.

Pinch runner Dylan Truman and Pulkkinen scored on a bases-loaded single by Nicholas Binette, then Holbrook came home on Soehren’s single. The lead was up to 9-2.

Binette and Soehren scored on a bloop single by Brown that dropped in between a few Edward Little players, then Brown came home on Brady Truman’s triple to give the Vikings a 12-2 lead and put the mercy rule into effect.

“It’s one of those things, it just snowballed,” Slicer said. “It was a good baseball game, it could have ended up 5-4, you know, anything could have happened down the stretch. We just capitalized, we had a couple bloops that could have ended the inning, and then we did smash the ball a few times.”

Edward Little coach Dave Jordan said that not only did the Vikings capitalize on their opportunities, they also prevented the Red Eddies from turning their chances into big innings.

“They put us in positions with guys on base, which, you know, created some stress, and I think they were able to capitalize on that and get some runs in,” Jordan said. “I thought on the other side, we also got some guys on base, but they showed a lot of resiliency, Oxford did, in terms of making some plays. I thought their outfielders did a great job of running some balls down.

“They just made more plays than we did today.”

Slicer said that Wednesday was the first time Oxford Hills’ offense has been explosive this spring. So that and the victory over the Red Eddies are good signs for the season, but there are still a lot of Class A North games remaining.

“EL’s always a tough, tough win, especially if Drew’s on the mound,” Slicer said. “I’m happy that the boys weren’t afraid. They looked it the first inning, I don’t think they swung the bat, but after that, it was kind of like, ‘Hey, we’re in this game, let’s see what we can do.’ The approach changed a little bit, you know, a little more confident.

“So, for us, I think the game’s going to give us confidence going forward. This is a tough league. I mean, obviously we’re a good team, but it’s anybody game. It’s wide open.”