When the American Legion playoff game between Coastal Athletics and Portland Boxing Club was called because of lightning Friday night, Coastal coach Todd Day and his players had every reason to be frustrated – they had been leading by seven runs in the fourth inning of the loser-goes-home game.
By the end of Saturday morning’s do-over game, Coastal had a new reason to be frustrated: PBC pitcher Bill Ridge held the boys from South Portland and Cape Elizabeth to just one run over nine innings, and he did so by relying on an array of off-speed pitches. Portland Boxing Club won, 3-1, and moved on to face Cumberland.
“He was throwing a lot of first-pitch, off-speed stuff, and my guys were taking it and they were getting strikes called on them,” said Day. “So they were getting behind in the count. Then he did a good job of nibbling in and out. He wasn’t throwing anything down the middle of the plate. He just kept us off-balance. You’ve got to give him all the credit in the world. We have a good hitting team, but we just didn’t get it done against them today.”
Relief pitcher Craig Seidl speculated on the reason for Coastal’s night and day (literally and figuratively) performances.
“I think we came in a little cocky today,” he said. “It’s probably something we shouldn’t have done, but you’ve got to give them credit for battling back.”
Actually, PBC didn’t really even have to battle back, as Seidl said. Friday night’s 9-2 score was erased from the scorebook when the teams met at Wainright Field Saturday at 10 a.m, and PBC’s pitching rotation was back in order.
“What it allowed us to do is to get our No. 1 pitcher back on line,” said PBC coach Bill Ridge, the father of that No. 1 pitcher.
Coastal took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning when first baseman Scott Guillerault tripled in catcher Andrew Wood (single). But for the second straight inning, Ridge got the third out with a runner still on third base – Paul Kierstead was stranded in the bottom of the second. The trend continued in the fifth and then again in the sixth.
Josh Garneau, Coastal’s 15-year-old starter, meanwhile, held PBC scoreless through five innings. He ran into trouble, though, in the top of the sixth.
Brian Lavoie led off with a single to left field, and Ben Gleason followed with an infield single to the right side. After Charlie Gendron loaded the bases with one out, Kevin O’Brien tied the game with an infield single between short and second. Nick Novy knocked in the winning run and some insurance a batter later when he hit a hard grounder up the middle that second baseman Matt Damon couldn’t get to.
“They got a couple seeing-eye basehits, and there’s nothing you can do about that. It’s part of the game,” said Day.
From there, Ridge switched on the cruise control. He did get some help from his defense, though. Second baseman Costa Kapothanasis made an over-the-shoulder catch on a pop-up in shallow right for the second out with runners on second and third in the sixth. Ridge got Justin Collett swinging to end the threat.
Coastal challenged again in the bottom of the ninth, when Wood and Guillerault both reached, but again Ridge clamped down, getting Mike Wells to groundout out to second to end the game.
“We had runners in scoring position all the time, but we just didn’t get that big hit to spark us,” said Guillerault. “I’m really frustrated. I think we could’ve gone all the way and made an impact on the state tournament too, but the chips didn’t fall our way.”
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