GARDINER — The Cony baseball team had already wrapped up its first playoff appearance in three seasons. But there was one more matter for the Rams to attend to.

Dakota Andow drove in a pair of runs, Riley Geyer pitched a complete game in his first start of the season and Cony completed a season sweep of rival Gardiner, earning a 4-2 victory. Cony also beat Gardiner 3-2 in nine innings back in April.

“This is a big win for us, to move on to the playoffs so we face Lewiston and have some momentum going,” Andow said. “It gives us some confidence going in. They’re a pretty good team.”

Cony finishes the regular season at 11-5 after back-to-back 4-12 records.

“We left some runs out there, definitely, but at the same time, we did what we needed to do to win,” coach Don Plourde said. “I’m so proud of where this team was and where they are now, and how they finished up. … It’s on them. They’re the ones that put in the hard work.”

Gardiner, in the midst of its own turnaround, fell to 7-9, but will still be in the Class B North playoffs even after starting the season 0-5. The Tigers began the day in 10th place in the standings.

“They executed a few more plays than we did,” said coach Charlie Lawrence, whose team got three hits from Logan Grover. “We’ll be bummed about it a little bit tonight because it’s Cony-Gardiner, but we’re going to brush it off tomorrow, we’re going to come back to work and get ready for Tuesday.”

Cony went up 1-0 in the first when Andow singled in Geyer, but Gardiner pulled even in the bottom of the second when Darien Jamison scored on a passed ball. In the third, Kyle Douin hit a grounder to first that took a hard hop off Jamison, and took second when the ball caromed into foul territory. Eli Bezanson followed with a single to left, and Andow hit a sacrifice fly to center that scored Douin. Bezanson scored the second run of the inning on a wild pitch, bumping the advantage to 3-1.

Gardiner got a run back in the fourth when Grover’s triple to deep left scored Kyle Adams, but Cony got an insurance tally in the sixth. Brayden Barbeau hit an infield single to third and went to second on a throwing error, then went to third on a wild pitch. With Bobby Stolt batting, Plourde called for a squeeze, and Stolt got the bunt down perfectly to allow Barbeau to come in and make it 4-2.

“We watch our kids every day in practice, and we know what they can do,” Plourde said. “Bobby’s got great hands, and every day when we’re working on sacrifice bunt, suicide squeezes, he gets the job done and looks good. Perfect candidate.”

It was enough support for Geyer, who had worked mostly as Cony’s closer all season, but who went the distance on 95 pitches in his first start while allowing five hits, walking one and striking out seven.

 

“I was not expecting a complete game. I have a role on this team, and it’s as a closer, reliever kind of guy,” Geyer said. “Coach, at the top of the sixth inning, was like ‘Do you want another one?’ I’m like ‘Yeah, I want to keep going.’ He said he had Kyle (Douin) going in, I said ‘Coach, I want it. I want the game.’ He said ‘Alright, I’ll give it to you.’ ”

In the seventh, Geyer gave up a leadoff single to Grover, but struck out the next three to seal the win.

“With the rivalry with Gardiner, we were ready for this game for a couple of days,” Geyer said.

Noah Reed started for the Tigers and pitched the first four innings, while Casey Bourque handled the last three.

“We played fairly well,” Lawrence said. “We had a few mental mistakes, a few errors that cost us.”

Lawrence, however, wasn’t about to lose perspective on the season, one that saw the Tigers salvage their playoff hopes after a dreadful beginning.

“That’s a credit to them,” he said. “They could have easily, when we went 0-5, just hung it up, said ‘We’re not going to do well this year,’ and they didn’t. They show up every day and work hard.”

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