By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

BUCKFIELD – Matej Husek wasn’t exactly imported from a baseball hotbed.

In his home country, the Czech Republic, Husek is the exception – a gifted young athlete who doesn’t focus his talents on pucks or soccer balls. He is a baseball player, and a pretty darn good one at that.

An exchange student in his junior year at Old Orchard Beach High School, Husek is beginning to emerge as an exceptional athlete here in Maine, too, and his two-hit shutout of Buckfield Thursday is the latest evidence.

The left-hander struck out 16 and walked just one in seven innings as the Seagulls handed the young Bucks their first defeat of the season, 5-0.

“He comes from a city of 1.2 million and he plays on the Czech national team,” said OOB coach Tom Lachance. “They don’t even have high school baseball.”

Husek has won all three of his starts for the Seagulls (5-1) and has fanned 40 batters and walked just four.

He was perfect through the first 4 1/3 innings Thursday, striking out nine of the first 13 batters he faced, before yielding a walk to Dillon Emery and a bunt single to Chris Reuter. He got out of the jam by fanning Josh Emery and Cy Wilkinson swinging, then went on to retire six of the final seven Bucks, yielding only a two-out single to Justin Dodge in the sixth.

His outfield also helped out. Right fielder Kyle Murphy threw Wilkinson out at first on what appeared to be a bloop single (a rare 9-3 putout, if you’re scoring at home) in the third, and center fielder Javier Valencia robbed Reuter of a single with a nice diving catch to end the game.

“We start four freshmen, three sophomore and two juniors and (OOB) showed our age by putting pressure on us, especially in the batter’s box,” said Buckfield coach Chuck Williams, whose team is now 4-1. “These freshmen and sophomores haven’t seen a pitcher like that, I don’t believe.”

“I felt pretty good. It was a nice warm day,” said Husek, who set up his sneaky fastball with two types of curve balls that he threw for strikes. “I know if I’m on and get two strikes, I can throw my fastball (out of the strike zone) and they might swing at it.”

Buckfield sophomore starter Jamie Henderson matched Husek pitch-for-pitch through the first three innings. He fanned six Seagulls the first time through the order, striking out the side in the third.

But he ran into trouble in the fourth, giving up three straight singles to Valencia, Ryan Mondor and Brian Robillard. Robillard’s hit, an grounder in the hole between short and third, scored Valencia. Henderson then had a pitch get past Reuter to the backstop, plating Mondor. Reuter’s throw attempting to cut down Mondor at the plate got by Henderson, allowing pinch-runner Donald Dutton to score from second.

“Jamie threw well the first three innings. He struggled a little bit in the fourth, lost his control a little bit,” Williams said. “Like I told the kids, that was a good game. We could learn a lot from that game.”

Henderson finished with nine Ks, five hits, a walk and three earned runs in five innings.

The Seagulls added single markers in the fifth, on Valencia’s RBI single, and in the seventh, on a double steal.