Hampden Academy senior Collin Peckham tamed Old Town’s bats on Wednesday night, helping shut out the reigning Class B state champs 6-0 at home on Bordick Field.
Peckham, one of five Bronco seniors honored on their home finale Wednesday, fanned three and allowed six total baserunners through six innings, and junior Bodie Bishop came on in the seventh to close out the game in 12 pitches.
With the victory, the Broncos strengthened their hold on the No. 1 overall seed in Class A, improving to 13-1. Old Town fell to 9-4.
“I think my curveball bailed me out,” Peckham said, who has a 2.38 ERA this season. “I was getting my fastball over, but I couldn’t put anyone away with it. They were fouling it off. I was relying on the off-speed to keep them off-balance, getting a lot of ground outs off the end of the bat.”
The game was a pitchers’ duel through four innings, before the wheels came off for Old Town’s bullpen in the fifth, conceding five runs in the frame.
Hampden’s offensive outburst began with a one-out walk for junior Andrew “Dodo” Cote (1-for-3) at the top of the order, followed by RBI walks from junior Kaysen Wildman (two RBIs) and senior Garrett McLeod (1-for-3), a sacrifice fly for sophomore Gavin Monyok and RBI singles for junior Josh Lorenzo (1-for-1) and senior Zach McLaughlin (2-for-3) at the bottom of the Broncos’ order.
“Every at-bat is key. Gotta stay focused, stay locked in,” senior TJ Llerena (2-for-4, two runs) said. “We were taking the pitches they gave us, and getting confident in ourselves.”
Llerena batted Cote over to second on a single to left field in the fifth, and also scored from third on a grounder from Wildman in the first.
Old Town star freshmen Julian Duty (two innings, one run, two strikeouts) and Tyler Priest (two innings, three strikeouts) pitched well through four, but were yanked due to pitch count limitations.
“We wanted to come in here and see if we could hang with them, which we did,” Old Town head coach Justin Crisafulli said. “We have a game we really need [to win] this Friday versus MDI, and the plan is for them to pitch.”
Moving forward, the Coyotes will play the Trojans (9-5) away on Friday, Orono (7-7) at home next Tuesday, and John Bapst (1-13) away next Wednesday. Old Town is currently ranked fourth in Class B North, and wants to maintain its seed so it can host a first round playoff game.
Hampden will wrap up its regular season versus Brewer (6-9) away on Friday, and Hermon (5-8) away next Tuesday, before embarking on a quest for its first ever state title.
“We’re just taking it one game at a time. The rankings may say whatever, but some of these teams in our conference are good and put up one hell of a fight,” Llerena said. “Thirteen and one — look at years past, not many people have done that. We have a good chance this year.”
