Baseball
GNG 0
Cape Elizabeth 9
For the first time this season, Cape Elizabeth pitcher Liam O’Shea has confidence in his change-up.
O’Shea, a senior, had been leaving the pitch up in the zone during the regular season. In Tuesday’s preliminary-round Western Class B playoff game against No. 11 Gray-New Gloucester, though, something clicked for O’Shea.
The pitch, essentially a split-fingered fastball, was darting down in the zone. The Patriots were left lunging at O’Shea’s offerings, which also included a well-placed fastball and a curveball.
The result was a 9-0 win for the sixth-seeded Capers, who are now back on track after losing three straight to end the regular season. They play No. 3 Mountain Valley Thursday.
“This is good. We had a rough stretch at the end of the season – some stuff on the field, some stuff off the field – but I think we’re all focused now,” said O’Shea. “We’re ready to go. We’re ready to win three more games.”
If you’re doing the math at home, three more wins is what it would take for the Capers to bring home their second state title in three years. With O’Shea pitching the way he did, the defense playing the way it did, and the bats coming alive the way they did, the Capers believe a deep run is a very realistic possibility.
“I think so,” said Drake Livada, Cape’s senior shortstop. “We’ve got the team and we’ve got the experience. We’ve got 10 seniors, and a lot of us have done it before, our sophomore year, so I think we can do it. I think our confidence is back, too.”
A 15-hit performance off a second-team all-conference pitcher, Jared Dunn, who had a 1.04 ERA coming in, helped the Capers regain their swagger. They touched up Dunn for a run in the first, two in the second, two in the fourth and four in the fifth.
“We were facing some good teams (at the end of the year), and hopefully we’ve used that as a learning tool and we’re going to take that into the playoffs,” said Cape coach Todd Day. “I think we saw out there today an example of that because we came focused and ready to play and played hard, and our bats came hard.”
The Capers went up 1-0 when Kevin Martin’s RBI double drove in Kyle Dancause (infield single).
In the second inning, Sami Chabani reached on a one-out bunt single. The following batter, Kyle Toot, made the second out, but Dancause delivered Chabani with a double over the left fielder’s head. Livada made it 3-0 when he plated Dancause with a lined single to right field.
The all-out offensive attack resumed in the fourth inning. O’Shea helped himself with a single to start the inning. He moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Chabani, then advanced to third on an infield single by Toot.
The next batter, Dancause, grounded to short, but the throw to first was wild, and O’Shea scored easily. Toot made it 5-0 when he scored on a single by Pat Murphy, who will pitch Thursday for the Capers.
“That is not a typical number 11 seed,” said Day. “I was worried that we were going to get Gray’s best today, and luckily for us we came ready to play.”
With O’Shea’s changeup working to perfection, the Capers could’ve coasted the rest of the way, but they padded the lead with four more runs in the bottom of the fifth.
Chabani provided a two-run single that scored Martin and Spencer Marcuse; Toot had an RBI double that scored Chabani; and Dancause reached on another error to score Toot.
“I think we can (win it) if we’re playing the baseball we’re capable of playing,” said O’Shea. “We’ve got a lot of seniors on this team that are used to playing in this time of environment. We’ve played in a lot of state championships coming through the years. We’re used to the pressure. I think if we can play as a team and play like we’re capable of we’ll do real well.”
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