The opportunity to play at Hadlock Field made Tuesday night a special date on the Scarborough High baseball calendar.

Making it even more special was the homecoming for first-year head coach Mike D’Andrea, who was facing a Deering High squad full of students he has taught in physical education at a school where he coached for 12 seasons (1997-2008) and won seven Class A state titles.

The Red Storm did their new coach proud, making Deering pay for early defensive miscues to forge a 7-1 SMAA victory behind the two-hit pitching of Josh Reed.

“It’s a huge thing to play at Hadlock,” said Scarborough catcher Bayley Welsh, whose single sparked the Red Storm’s six-run uprising in the second inning. “And we wanted to beat them for our coach. That was definitely a factor.”

The victory was the sixth in seven games for Scarborough, one fewer than last year’s 7-9 team that failed to reach the playoffs. Deering dropped to 4-4.

Deering’s Pat Viola waits for the ball as Scarborough’s Nick Lorello begins his slide into second with a stolen base Tuesday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Scarborough took a 1-0 lead in the first after a dropped infield pop set up an RBI single by Reed, the first of his three hits. In the second, Welsh seemed likely to be forced at second base when a shallow fly by Jack Hughes fell safely, but a poor throw put runners on first and second with none out.

“They gave us a couple extra outs there, which is part of the game,” D’Andrea said, “but we capitalized on it. It definitely took the heat off and I thought we played a little more relaxed.”

Nick Lovello’s sacrifice fly made it 2-0. Matt Caron’s infield grounder seemed to snuff out the rally until a wide throw to first allowed another run to score and set the stage for a Tim Carion single, a Reed triple and a Morgan Pratt single that brought in five unearned runs and put the Red Storm up 7-0.

“It sets up the game well if we get runs on the board and then shut them down on defense,” Reed said. “We just put the bat on the ball and put it in play and made them defend.”

Reed (2-0) had a few control problems, walking five and plunking three batters, but he struck out five and stranded nine runners in six innings. The only hits he allowed were an infield single in the first and a two-out double in the fifth – both by Dom Bernard – and the double came only after a foul pop that should have ended the inning was dropped.

Luciano Minervo had reached on an error to open the Deering fifth and came around to score on Ian Westphal’s infield grounder to avert the shutout.

“We played pretty solid defense with the exception of that one inning,” D’Andrea said. “(Reed) established his curveball. He kept them off balance and made them hit off-speed.”

Taylor Cookson pitched a scoreless seventh to close out the Rams, who lost their third straight after a 4-1 start. James Sinclair (2-1) went the distance for Deering, allowing only three singles and no baserunners beyond second over the final five innings. He struck out five, walked three and hit two batters. Only one of the runs was earned.

“We only had one bad inning that came back to haunt us,” said Deering Coach Josh Stowell, who played on D’Andrea’s 2003 and 2004 state championship teams. “That’s all it really was.”

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