KENNEBUNK — The fans who made the trip to Kennebunk High School on Tuesday for a Southwestern Maine Activities Association baseball showdown between the host Rams and the Thornton Academy Golden Trojans would be treated to an episode of “The Brogan Searle-Belanger Show.”
The Thornton Academy senior would do it all for the Golden Trojans as he allowed just one hit on the hill and drove home three runs at the plate to lead TA to a 12-0 win over Kennebunk in a five-inning game.
TA coach Jason Lariviere was impressed with Searle-Belanger, who went 3 2/3 innings on the mound and was only taken out of the game to save him for Saturday’s game against rival Biddeford.
“I thought he looked good,” said Lariviere of Searle-Belanger’s first start of the season. “His velocity was really good. We didn’t have to throw much breaking stuff, but at the end he started mixing it in a little bit. He’s going to be an important piece so we wanted to make sure he got some work.”
Searle-Belanger went 3-for-3 at the plate with three doubles and three RBIs. The senior was thrilled to help himself at the plate and give himself and reliever Matt Merrill plenty of run support.
“It gives you a lot more confidence as a pitcher,” said Searle-Belanger on having a big lead. “It makes you think (about throwing) more strikes instead of trying to hit the corners and stuff because you know your guys will make the plays — and even if they do score a couple runs it won’t really matter because we scored so many.”
The Trojans (3-1) won for the second time in as many days after dropping an 8-1 decision to Portland on Saturday.
“The cure to losing is playing again. It’s not sitting around and kind of dwelling on it,” said Lariviere. “It’s good to be busy and we knew when we got back from Florida that there’s going to be a stretch where it’s going to be non-stop and we’ve got to play well. We are happy that we’re staying busy and the more we play it seems like the more we gel.”
Lariviere, who is in his first year with the Trojans, has been stressing the importance of playing fundamental baseball.
“I don’t know any of these teams (on our schedule) so we always go in with a philosophy of playing clean baseball, playing good defense, throwing strikes and having a good approach at the plate,” Lariviere said. “On Saturday, when we lost to Portland we didn’t execute at all. We looked horrible and we just said ‘hey let’s go into every game with a good approach, not assuming anything,’ and I think we played really good defense today. We hit the ball, we took walks when we needed to and that’s what you need to do to win.”
Thornton Academy, which jumped out to a 7-0 lead after the second inning, would get two hits and one RBI from Luke Chessie. Tim Smith had one single and two RBIs, and Calvin Christoforo had a single and one RBI in the win.
“We are a tough team when we play well, but you know this league’s tough. There’s a lot of good teams and we are just trying to play well every game,” Lariviere said.
Derek Smith had the lone hit for Kennebunk, which dropped to 1-2 on the season.
“We knew they’re one of the better teams in the conference, so we knew we had to play really well just to stay with them,” said Kennebunk coach Brian Dill. “We didn’t play well in the beginning of the game, made some mistakes in the field, but you know, we are young.”
Dill knew his team would take some lumps as they rejoined the SMAA after several years of playing in the Western Maine Conference.
“It’s part of the learning process for us because we have a lot of new guys, a lot of younger guys where it’s a big step up. We went from Western Maine Conference, which is a good conference, to a better conference,” Dill said.
The Kennebunk coach is hoping his players will have a short memory as the Rams get ready for a game at Cheverus on Thursday.
“You try to keep their heads up. You try to keep it positive. You can’t change today, you’ve just got to try to go to the next one and keep getting better,” said Dill.
NOTES: Thornton Academy would also get hits from Cameron Cross, Brady Lambert and Jacob Laplume … Merrill would go the final 1 1/3 innings on the mound for TA and didn’t allow a hit … The Trojans will host Windham on Thursday before visiting Biddeford on Saturday afternoon.
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.

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