Baseball: Oxford Hills gives Edward Little the slip

AUBURN — Oxford Hills pitcher Eli Soehren knows a good day on the hill goes hand and hand with strong defensive performance.

Soehren got both as the Vikings shook Edward Little loose with a 6-2 victory in a Class A North baseball game Wednesday afternoon at Central Maine Community College.

The senior struck out five batters, walked one and gave up six hits in a complete-game effort.

“Having a good defense behind me works for me,” Soehren said. “I think my slider worked pretty well. Today we made the plays.”

The Vikings (8-2) scored their first run in the top of the first inning. Brady Truman got on with a walk, stole second and moved to third on Soehren’s fielder’s choice. Truman scored on Kolby Brown’s groundout to first base.

Edward Little (6-3) took a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning. Brady Vincent walked and moved to second on Kade Masselli’s single, then came home on Gage Ducharme’s RBI single. Masselli decided to make a play for home on a throwing error and scored.

Oxford Hills tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the fifth inning. Nick Binette got on with a fielder’s choice after Truman, who led off with a walk, was forced out at second. Binette came home with the tying run on Soehren’s RBI single.

“I thought it was up and down,” Oxford Hills coach Shane Slicer said. “Eli competed really well. Pretty efficient with his 80-something pitches.”

Slicer added that Oxford Hills’ at-bats made starting Edward Little pitcher Campbell Cassidy work hard.

“He threw 31 pitches in the first inning,” Slicer said. “I like the fact that we rebounded. They brought (another pitcher) in and we took advantage of that. I am just proud of the boys on the road this week have done a good job. We just keep rolling and get better.”

The Vikings came up with three more runs using a four-hit attack, which included a pair of RBI doubles, in the top of the sixth.

Carter Holbrook and Truman each ripped an RBI double and Binette hammered out an RBI single to put the Vikings ahead 5-2.

The Vikes got one more run in the seventh. Brown singled and moved all the way to third base on Hunter Tardiff’s hit. Tardiff was almost tagged out in a rundown, allowing Brown to cross home plate in all the commotion.

“Even though we gave up a lot of free bases early on, we were in a pretty good spot still,” Edward Little coach Dave Jordan said. “We were tied 2-2. I thought our guys battled. We probably didn’t play our best game against a solid team…

“I thought we got out of some jams and we were still in a position to compete and possibly win the game.”

Cassidy went five innings, striking out six batters, before being relieved by Brennan Anthoine, who got was tagged with the loss, in the sixth inning. TJ Kramarz came on in the seventh and finished out the game for the Red Eddies.