FARMINGDALE — Friday’s Mountain Valley Conference baseball game between Madison and Hall-Dale bore little resemblance to the game the teams played Monday in Madison.

That one was a low-scoring pitcher’s duel. Friday’s game was more about hitting.

Hall-Dale spotted Madison some early runs then bounced back in the middle innings, getting big triples from Zach McNaughton and Brad Shepherd  en route to a 13-10 win.
Hall-Dale is 9-3 while Madison falls to 5-8.

The game was filled with walks and errors, but there was also some timely hitting. Madison led 8-7 going into the bottom of the fourth when Hall-Dale took the lead on Shepherd’s booming triple to left-center.

“After the second inning we realized we were in an ugly game and it was going to stay ugly,” Hall-Dale coach Tim Johnson said.

Madison tied the game at 9 in the top of the fifth inning on an RBI single from Cody Soucier, but Hall-Dale rallied for three in the bottom of the fifth as they got to Madison starter Stephen Day for four straight hits.

“He pitched very well today,” Madison coach Scott Franzose said. “I thought he pitched out of some nice jams. He got a little ginked up with the defense behind him but I thought he showed some nice focus.”

Madison finished with 12 hits, four of those from DH Travis Emerson, who also drove in three runs. Soucier and K.P. Carpenter, both freshmen, had two hits apiece. The Bulldogs led 6-3 going into the bottom of the third inning when McNaughton tied the game with a bases-loaded triple to left, Hall-Dale would rally again in the fourth when Shepherd tripled to left center to tie the game at 8.

“I got a good piece of it,” said Shepherd, who put his team ahead when he scored on a ground ball.

He figured into the fifth-inning rally, too. With two outs, Matt Plourde singled up the middle and went to second on a balk. He scored on a base hit by Ezra Jones. Ben Crocker singled Jones home, stole second and scored on a single by Shepherd.

Ben Crocker picked up the win in relief of his freshman brother Nat, who came on in the third inning for starter Zac Plummer.

“We put Zac out there and he was sick,” Johnson said. “I said ‘You go out and do what you can for as long as you can.’ ”

The win was the third this week for Hall-Dale and its sixth in a row.

“Coach Johnson has come in and done a lot of good things with this team,” Ben Crocker said.

Madison remains in the Western Maine Class C tournament picture but could use a couple of wins over its final three games.

“We’ve got a couple of big guys next week, Telstar and Lisbon with a shot at Heal (points),” Franzose said. “But we’re running out of time.”

Gary Hawkins — 621-5638
ghawkins@centralmaine.com

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