Keegan Goan pitched a solid six innings Monday for the Westbrook 14-year-old Babe Ruth baseball all-stars and took the mound in the seventh ready to close out the game against the combined team from Cape Elizabeth, South Portland, Scarborough and Falmouth.
Goan, however, had pitched an inning four days earlier and was therefore ineligible under Babe Ruth rules to throw even one more pitch. Luckily, the Westbrook coaches realized this before the inning started. But that is where their luck ended.
Westbrook relief pitcher Chad Egeland wasn’t expecting that he’d get the ball in the seventh. He was unable to find the groove his teammate had been in, and his opponents took advantage of that for a come-from-behind, 4-1 win.
“It was late in the game, and he’s coming in cold. Make him throw,” said Andrew Dickey, coach of the combined team. “We just told our batters to be patient.”
Dickey’s hitters waited to see strikes and when they didn’t the green-clad team took free passes to first. Travis Jordan eventually came in for Westbrook, but in the end his opponents collected five walks and a single, resulting in four runs.
Mitch Beaulieu (three innings) and Brendan Sullivan (four innings), meanwhile, had quietly pitched an excellent game for the combined team. Beaulieu did walk five, and one of those – Tom Pratt – came in to score on Dane Tupper’s single in the second.
But that was the only run the starter let up, and Sullivan came in and was virtually perfect in relief. Tupper, the first hitter he faced, reached on an error, but was doubled off on Goan’s grounder, part of the 11 in a row that Sullivan set down.
The combined team almost tied the score in the sixth when Andy Dickey doubled to left center. It looked as though Sullivan, who had reached via a walk, could have scored, but he was held at third.
When Pratt dove near his team’s dugout to catch Ben Wilson’s foul pop for the second out and John Dibiase flied out for the third, it looked like Westbrook was going to hang on.
Westbrook second baseman Nick Levesque made another super play in the seventh, diving into center field to haul in Nick Emmert’s would-be hit with two on. It was the second out and it again looked like Westbrook would escape.
“When their second baseman made that play it was huge,” said Coach Dickey. “It could have been the crusher, but fortunately we got by that.”
The loss was Westbrook’s first in the double-elimination tournament, so the two teams were scheduled to meet again Tuesday for the district title.
“We’ll try to score some runs early,” said the elder Dickey.
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