Trejyn Fletcher made his final high school baseball game one to remember.
Fletcher, 18, who has committed to play for Vanderbilt, is projected as a possible Day 1 pick in the major league draft that begins Monday.
But on Thursday night at Hadlock Field, he was a Deering High senior doing all he could to beat rival Portland.
Fletcher pitched the first six innings, striking out nine, caught reliever Luke Hill in the seventh, hit a monster home run and scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh in a 6-5 victory.
Deering (4-12) won’t make the Class A South playoffs. Portland (7-9) will get in, probably as the 12th and final seed.
“It felt amazing,” Fletcher said of hitting an opposite-field home run in his final high school game. “All our friends, our fellow students, were going crazy. My parents were going crazy. Our team was going crazy. I was going crazy a little bit. It was an exhilarating feeling.”
The home run leading off the third cut Portland’s lead to 4-3.
Portland scored two runs in the second and two in the third on a total of one hit – using walks, stolen bases, passed balls and one Deering error.
After the fourth run scored on a passed ball, Fletcher — making his third pitching start of the season — was visibly frustrated. But after a mound chat with Coach Josh Stowell, he struck out the next two hitters to end the inning and strand a runner at third. Then he led off the bottom of the inning with his home run to right-center.
Deering went ahead 5-4 in the fourth with three straight hits from the bottom of its order. Hill beat out an infield single and chugged home on a triple to deep left by No. 7 hitter Blain Alves. Dominic Russo followed with a double.
Portland, which had only three hits, tied it without a hit in the sixth. Griffin Buckley drew a leadoff walk and moved up on a sacrifice. Buckley then stole third and scored when catcher Hill’s throw went into left field.
Hill pitched well in the seventh with two strikeouts.
Fletcher led off the bottom of the seventh with a single.
“The difference in this game offensively was Fletcher,” said Portland Coach Mike Rutherford. “He came up as the leadoff batter three times and he scored all three times. You can’t walk him like we (unintentionally) did in the first inning because he steals second, steals third and scores a run.”
Sure enough, Fletcher stole second in the seventh and went to third on an infield single by Matt Keast. Josh Paisley was intentionally walked to load the bases and Portland pulled a fifth fielder into the infield, leaving it up to Bennett Berg to make some solid contact.
Berg rapped a single up the middle to end the game.
“That’s all I had to do. Tre’s fast. I could have done anything, really,” Berg said. “We battled really hard. It was one of our better games.”
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