WALES — Oak Hill pitchers Kyle Delano and Jackson Arbour both pitched effectively, kept their pitch counts down and combined to shut out Winthrop in a Class C South first-round playoff game Tuesday.
Both also helped out at the plate, as the eighth-seeded Raiders knocked out the ninth-seeded Ramblers 10-0 in six innings.
Oak Hill (11-6) advances to face No. 1 Lisbon (17-0) in the C South quarterfinals.
Delano started on the mound for Oak Hill. He gave up an infield single in the first but got out of the inning quickly.
In the bottom of the first, Trent Drouin singled and moved to third on a double by Ethan Vattaso. Delano singled home both runners, giving the Raiders an early 2-0 lead and himself some breathing room on the mound.
“That felt really good,” Delano said. “I wasn’t too hot the last couple games, so getting one out there to start was big.”
An opening hit in the top of the second by Winthrop’s Will Grant was, again, no problem for Delano, who set the next three batters down in order. Delano pitched 3 2/3 innings, giving up three hits and striking out three batters.
“I felt good,” Delano said. “I have a lot of trust in my teammates, they’re going to make a play and they’re gonna come out and play. I got warmed up, was feeling good, did what I could and tried to stay under the pitch count.”
Oak Hill added another run in the second inning when Cooper Spencer scored on Drouin’s two-out single that made it 3-0.
In the third, Landon Bangs’ single brought home Delano and Isaac Morissette, who both reached base on singles, pushing the lead to 5-0.
Arbour took over for Delano, who had reached 38 pitches, on the mound and got the third out in the fourth inning. Both Delano and Arbor stayed under 40 pitches Tuesday, which makes them available to pitch against Lisbon in the quarterfinal game.
“It’s huge, obviously,” Oak Hill coach Chad Stowell said. “We’re going to need an A-plus effort next game. … To have all four (Delano, Arbour, Ethan Mattaso and Trent Drouin) of your pitchers available, that’s big for us. They can all throw differently and can attack in different ways.”
Two more runs were plated by Oak Hill in the fourth on a two-run double by Arbour, extending the lead to 7-0.
The Raiders finished the job in the bottom of the sixth.
Grayson Letourneau drove in a run in when a grounder to shortstop was misplayed, and Spencer was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to bring in another run, giving the Raiders a 9-0 lead. Then a single from Caden Thompson gave Oak Hill a 10-run lead and the mercy-rule victory.
“Offensively, top-to-bottom, we had a really good day,” Stowell said. “Cooper Spencer, hitting eighth, got on a couple times. Caden Thompson drove in a run in the nine hole. We have some real varsity producers at the bottom of the order. When you can turn your lineup over and get to the top where we have some pretty good sticks is huge.”
Oak Hill and Winthrop’s regular season meeting went the full seven innings, and then some, with the Raiders pulling off a 3-2 win in eight innings on May 7.
On Tuesday, the Ramblers (9-8) didn’t have the same energy from the start, according to coach John Novak.
“We were just — we got off the bus flat,” Novak said. “We had poor batting practice, poor infield-outfield, we just didn’t have the spark we’ve had. It’s just the day; baseball is a funny sport.
“Obviously, we could’ve hit the ball a thousand times better, we’ve hit better all year, but hats off to Oak Hill. Delano threw a great game and they hit the ball really well. Hats off, they played really well and we didn’t get the job done.”
The Ramblers didn’t have much success at the plate.
Andrew Fay singled in the fifth inning and reached second base on a fielder’s choice but was stranded at second. That was the only time a Winthrop runner reached scoring position.
Lisbon advanced to the quarterfinals by beating 17th-seeded Boothbay/Wiscasset 5-2 on Tuesday.
The Raiders and the Greyhounds met once in the regular season, a 4-3 Lisbon victory in eight innings in the season opener on April 25.
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