WALES — The early part of the season has left the Oak Hill High School baseball team with plenty of questions while Monmouth Academy has seemingly had all the answers.

Little changed when the two teams met Friday afternoon.

The Mustangs (5-0 Class C South) had three pitchers combine on a no-hitter and broke the game wide open with seven runs in the top of the second inning to pick up an 11-0 win in five innings over the Raiders (1-6 Class B South) in a Mountain Valley Conference contest.

“We came out a little slow in the first, a little flat but once we get running, we pick it up,” said Monmouth coach Eric Palleschi, who picked up his 100th career victory Friday. “These guys like to fly around the bases, put balls in play and put pressure on the defense.”

Lefty Nick Sanborn went the first three innings to pick up the win for Monmouth. He allowed two baserunners — Dalton Therrien on an error in the first and Austin Noble on a walk in the second — and struck out six on 44 pitches. Gage Cote tossed a clean fourth inning and Hunter Richardson faced the minimum in the fifth. Brent Mulherin reached on an error to lead off the fifth but was doubled up by Richardson after snaring a line drive by Noble.

“Everything was working pretty well, my curveball especially,” said Sanborn, who added he had no problem exiting the game with the no-hitter intact. “I trust my teammates so much. They can do it.”

Sanborn started the big second inning with a walk, and he, Chandler Harris, Travis Hartford and Avery Pomerleau ultimately all scored without a ball leaving the infield to put the Mustangs up 4-0.

Two more scored on a fly out to right from Richardson with one out and the bases loaded, as Devon Poisson came home from third on the out and Cote scored from second when the cut-off throw squirted away from first baseman Adam Mooney. Nick Dovinsky, who made it to third on the play, then scored on a single from Sanborn to wrap up the scoring in the inning. All told, the Mustangs scored seven runs — four earned — on three singles and three errors in the top of the second.

“Everything we’ve been doing well all year — staying close, battling back, staying in ball games — we didn’t do any of that (Friday),” said Oak Hill coach Matt Bray, whose Raiders have lost three one-run games this season. “I don’t know the reason. We’re kind of having a lot of soul searching, trying to figure out where that is and where this team is going to be.

“Talent-wise, we don’t lose to this team 11-0 talent-wise. We’re a much better baseball team than that, but they played a great game. They bunted well, they ran well and we made a mountain of mistakes.”

As important as the win was for Monmouth, managing its pitchers the way it did was also critical. Cote and Richardson threw just nine and 10 pitches, respectively, to back up Sanborn’s tidy 44-pitch performance. Friday’s game was the first in a stretch of five games in six days, thus making pitching a premium for the Mustangs.

“Nick probably could have gone longer but next week we’ve got (games) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” Palleschi said. “We don’t have Nick (Saturday), but we’ve got everybody else so it should be good.

“Pitching is one of our strengths. We’ve got four good arms and you saw three of them (Friday).”

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley

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