GARDINER — Nokomis’ aggressiveness at the plate, on the basepaths and on the mound paid off against Gardiner on a windy Friday.

Mike Massow threw six innings of shutout, two-hit ball and the Warriors succeeded on 10 of 11 stolen base attempts to hand the Tigers their second shutout in a row, 10-0.

Massow, a senior, struck out six, walked two and only allowed singles to Nic Berube and Devin Maschino. Just two Gardiner baserunners reached third base.

“Everything was going just the way I wanted it,” Massow said.

Dylan Thibodeau threw a 1-2-3 seventh to nail it down. Zach Hartsgrove led the Nokomis offense with two singles and three RBIs. Alec Baird had an RBI single, scored three runs and stole four bases.

“Our main goal is to jump on catchers and really be aggressive on the bases and make them make plays,” Hartsgrove said.

“That’s one of our newer things this year is to make sure we’re real aggressive on the base paths,” Mussow said. “Any extra bases can count.”

The Warriors took the extra base from the start and virtually every opportunity thereafter. Baird reached on an error to start the game, stole second, moved to third on Josh Perry’s bunt and scored on Hartsgrove’s grounder to first.

That quickly looked like it might be enough for Massow, who retired nine of the first ten Gardiner hitters. He kept the Tigers (2-2) off-balance by throwing first-pitch strikes and mixing up his pitches.

“(Getting up early in the count) is really important because it gives you the confidence that, yeah, you can go to the breaking ball if you need to,” Massow said. “I used it some last year, but I worked on it in the off-season and I have that extra off-speed that I can go to.”

“He can locate. That’s his thing,” said Hartsgrove, his catcher. “His breaking ball is very effective on 0-1, 0-2 pitches. He located fantastic today. He is the most confident player on our team when it comes to pitching. If he walks somebody, he won’t get down. He’ll come back and strike somebody out.”

Shut out, 3-0, by Waterville in their last game, Gardiner coach Russell Beckwith juggled his lineup to try to get the offense going. Nic Berube led off the second with a single, stole second and third but was stranded when Massow fanned Eli Fish to end the inning. Worse for the Tigers, Berube hurt himself on the steal of third and ran into immediate trouble in the fourth, allowing a pair of singles and two walks to start the inning before giving way to Hunter Chasse.

“Nic ran into some leg trouble stealing third and came back onto the hill a little flat. I think it kind of deflated everybody (Friday),” Beckwith said. “Unfortunately, if things don’t go your way, it seems to snowball. I think we’ll be fine.”

Hartsgrove’s RBI single and Cody Rice’s two-run single made it 4-0 in the fourth. The Warriors added an unearned run in the fifth, then blew it open with four in the sixth, highlighted by RBI singles from Baird and Hartsgrove.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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