Seahawks’ No. 2 pitcher shuts out Andies
LIVERMORE FALLS – Since they’ve struggled to put the big inning together all season, No. 6 Livermore Falls figured it would have to do the little things offensively to advance past No. 11 Boothbay in Tuesday’s Western Class C baseball preliminary.
Instead, it was the Seahawks who executed their small-ball game plan to perfection.
Boothbay scored all its runs in the fifth inning, and Max Arsenault tossed a three-hit shutout in the Seahawks’ 3-0 victory. They will face No. 3 Telstar in the semifinals Thursday.
The Andies went into Wednesday’s game expecting to see Will Carroll, Boothbay’s ace, toe the rubber. But Seahawks coach Bill Arsenault opted to save Carroll for the next round.
What he got from Max Arsenault was the kind of dominant performance that is Carroll’s specialty. The right-hander fanned eight while walking none and hitting a batter.
“Will’s arm has been a little sore, and Max has been throwing well, so Max was ready to go,” Bill Arsenault said. “His control was there, and that was a factor. Walks can hurt you in a low-scoring game like this.”
“I went out there a little sore, but about the third inning I felt like I had my velocity,” Max Arsenault said. “The first couple of innings, I didn’t feel like I had my pop. It took a couple of innings for me to control my curve ball, but after that it broke nice.”
The Andies (10-7) only threatened seriously in the sixth. Cole Flagg and Brad Bryant (2-for-3) reached to start the inning, but Arsenault struck out Chuck Drake and Mike Chamard swinging before getting Levi Jones, Livermore’s cleanup hitter, to ground out to second.
“You’ve just got to look past the runners and get the first out. The first out’s big,” Max Arsenault said. “I was definitely going for a strike out or a ground ball, but I was lucky enough to get the right pitch (on Drake) and then I got the next batter on a curve ball that really broke good.”
“Max Arsenault pitched well. He threw strikes,” said Andies coach Brian Dube. “We came right out and put the ball in play, but their defense made the plays today.”
Arsenault got a big assist from right fielder Mike Norton in the fourth. Norton got a good jump on a drive to deep right by Jones and tracked the ball down for the catch just before stumbling over the sagging orange mesh construction fence and held onto the ball as he tumbled down the hill and into the woods behind the fence.
Jones’ hard luck carried over to the mound. Boothbay (6-9) put runners on base in every inning, but Jones (six hits, nine strikeouts, three walks, two hit batters) kept the heart of the Seahawks’ order from doing any damage.
“Levi pitched well,” Dube said. “They had that one inning where they strung together a couple of hits. He was able to keep Arsenault and Carroll in check, but it was the 8-9-1 hitters that ended up doing us in.”
The bottom of the Boothbay order, Casey Latter (1-for-2, walk) and Kevin Carver (2-for-3) and leadoff man Norton got things going in the fifth with three consecutive singles to load the bases.
Boothbay didn’t get the ball out of the infield the rest of the inning, but it didn’t need to. Jones hit Ryan Babcock with his first pitch, which forced Latter in. He then got Carroll to ground to short, but the Andies’ only play was the force at second, so Carver scored. Norton came across with the third run on a perfectly-executed suicide squeeze by Jeff Barrett.
“We had tried the suicide squeeze earlier in the season and messed it up, so we have rehearsed it a few times since then,” Bill Arsenault said. “That was a good time for it to pay off.”
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