FARMINGDALE — No thanks to a deep, cloudless sky, both Carrabec and Hall-Dale made the routine seem difficult and the difficult seem routine in the field during Wednesday’s Mountain Valley Conference baseball matchup. The Bulldogs seem to be making a routine of winning close games at home early in the season, which may have been their only edge over the Cobras.
Quinn Stebbins’ two-out single scored Tyler Nadeau with the winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning as Hall-Dale edged Carrabec, 8-7.
“I just wanted to find any way to get on,” Stebbins said. “We’re ecstatic with this win. As coach says, good teams find a way to win and we proved we’re a good team today. It wasn’t our best effort, but we found a way to win.”
“We’ve been talking all week about how good teams find a way to win,” said Hall-Dale coach Bob Sinclair, whose team opened the season with a 5-4 win at home against Oak Hill. “Even though we’ve been making some early mental mistakes in the field, we’re coming back and finding ways to win, so it’s encouraging.”
Austin Stebbins started the rally by getting hit by a pitch from Carrabec reliever Hunter Fernald with one out. He was erased at second on a force out when Nadeau grounded back to the mound, but Nadeau stole second to get into scoring position anyway. After a walk to Tyler Dubois, Quinn Stebbins hit a soft line drive over a leaping shortstop into left-center, easily scoring Nadeau from second.
Hall-Dale (3-0) emerged from a mistake-filled first inning with a 3-2 lead. The Cobras (1-2) touched Bulldog’s starter Quinn Stebbins for five runs in the fourth, helped by two Hall-Dale errors.
With the bases loaded, Tyler Reichert hit a liner just over the center fielder’s head to drive in two. After a double steal put runners at second and third, Dustin Crawford scored on Dylan Willette’s ground out and Fernald followed with a triple into the gap in right-center to plate Reichert and make it 7-3 Carrabec.
Hall-Dale scored four in the fifth off Crawford to tie it, A dropped third strike and a dropped fly ball in left set up Quinn Stebbins’ two-run double and Ryan Sinclair’s tying RBI single to the opposite field.
Both teams had chances to take the lead in the sixth. Stebbins stranded runners at second and third in his half.
“I always have the belief that my teammates will make the plays,” Stebbins said. “We started off a little rough, but I knew we would get back and end up making the plays at the end and I tried to find a way to get it done on the mound.”
“He had one rough inning there where he didn’t get much defensive support, but he pitched a really great game,” Bob Sinclair said. “He pitched to contact, let the defense make the plays for him and he really battled.”
Crawford allowed the first two to reach in his half when he hit the first batter and slipped fielding Jordan Gardner’s ensuing bunt. But he picked the runner off second base and escaped the jam by getting Dubois to ground into a fielder’s choice.
“Dustin was great,” Carrabec coach Cory Paquette said. “He’s our number one guy. He scuffled there one inning. He lost his accuracy but then he battled back.”
Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638
rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @RAWmaterial33
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