SOUTH PARIS – Let’s see Take the Class A championship team, blend in the best player from a school up the road, stir in a couple of notable post-grads Hey, shouldn’t Bessey Motors have been treading water in the swimming pool and sitting on an automatic berth in the American Legion state tournament instead of playing a game Monday evening?
Well, it didn’t work out that way, but a team that looked positively frightening on paper has discovered its identity at an oh-so-convenient time. With four unearned runs in the fourth inning, and a pitching performance from Fryeburg Academy graduate Andrew Stacy that got better as the sun descended toward the horizon, No. 4 Bessey Motors ousted No. 7 Mechanic Falls, 7-2, to capture the Zone 3 title and its one remaining spot in the eight-team state bracket.
Stacy scattered six hits and sat down eight of the final nine Mechanic Falls hitters to steer Bessey (17-7) into the state tourney at Bangor’s Mansfield Stadium. Bessey’s first game is 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“This is my third year on the team, and we’ve been to the state tournament every year,” Stacy said. “You go from a high school program where mediocrity is kind of accepted to this. It’s great to be part of that tradition and all this fan support.”
Led primarily by the coaches and players who directed Oxford Hills to the state championship in the spring, Bessey Motors survived an equally crucial challenge Sunday. If it hadn’t won a 15-10 slugfest over top-seeded New Auburn, which already had locked up the first Zone 3 invitation, Bessey could have planned alternative entertainment for next weekend.
At first, it didn’t look like having the regular-season champions out of the way was enough to relax the hosts, but the four-run flurry that broke a 2-2 tie in the fourth did the trick.
“You were waiting for that big play or that big inning,” said Bessey Motors coach Shane Slicer. “I guess we put the ball in play enough to make them make mistakes, and we didn’t give up a run after the fourth inning.”
Bessey batted around in that frame at the expense of Mechanic Falls hurlers Will Griffiths and Joe Douglass on the strength of only two hits. Matt McDonnell started the commotion with a leadoff walk. Joe Baker followed by slapping a sinking line drive that took a finicky hop over the head of the center fielder, scoring McDonnell and advancing Baker to second.
Chris Roy then attempted a sacrifice bunt. The throw to first sailed wide of Brent Cary’s glove, however, and Baker hustled home to make it 4-2. Roy later advanced on Russell Estes’ bunt and scored on a wild pitch. Bessey built its fourth run of the inning on Ethan Sutton’s walk, Chris Jennings’ single and a booted grounder.
Unable to spot his fastball to perfection prior to that outburst, Stacy exhibited pinpoint control in the aftermath. He finished with six strikeouts.
Mechanic Falls (8-16) lurked throughout the evening the way it did throughout its surprising postseason run, parlaying aggressive base running, timely hitting and tidy pitching by committee with pesky results.
David Lutz scratched out an infield hit in the second inning, moved up on an infield single by Stevie Ray and scored on Griffiths’ solid stroke to left field. In the fourth, Tyler Merchant hooked a single down the left field line, took second on a wild pitch, stole third and tied the game on another throw to the backstop.
“It’s tough to maintain that intensity over three straight days, but I think we did,” said Mechanic Falls coach Dave Jordan. “Pretty much all our lapses were in one inning. It was our goal in the tournament to get outs when we could and limit people to one or two runs, and except for the fourth inning tonight, we did that.”
Each team scored only one run that didn’t result from an error or wild pitch. Bessey broke out to 1-0 lead in the first on a one-out single and stolen base by Stacy and an RBI single to center by McDonnell. After Lutz legged out the tying tally in the second, Jennings retrieved the run in the third when he was hit by a pitch, stole second, advanced on Stacy’s fly to center and scampered in on a wild pitch.
Bessey has reached the Legion state semifinals in each of the last two years.
“This team knows how to win,” Slicer said. “For a lot of the regular season, we were awfully tired. We took some breaks, and I gave them some breaks, because they needed it. But we were playing a lot of games with nine, 10, 11 guys. Now we’re starting to put it all together, and it gives us a pretty tough lineup.”
That big-game familiarity wasn’t lost on Jordan, who can see his Poland Regional High School-dominated squad playing the favorites’ role in a year or two.
“I’m happy for these kids,” Jordan said. “We had quite a few high school sophomores out there competing. It’s a lot like it was during the spring season for us at Poland. We’re still building a program, and this definitely was something to build on.”
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