YARMOUTH – Chester Jacobs and his Yarmouth baseball teammates are taking a simple approach they hope will lead to lasting success — concentrate on the fundamentals and the rest will take care of itself.

Jacobs was on top of his game Monday afternoon in a complete-game three-hitter, leading the Clippers to a 3-1 win over Wells in a Western Maine Conference Class B baseball game.

“I thought I pitched pretty well, just put it in there and let them hit it,” said Jacobs.

“It’s a team of nine guys out on the field and I know they can make the plays. I’m not afraid to throw any pitch in any count because I have confidence in my guys behind me.”

Jacobs (1-0) was the catalyst of an excellent defensive effort by the Clippers.

After allowing a one-out double to Connor Pease with one out in the first, Jacobs retired 15 straight. The ball left the infield only three times in that stretch.

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“(Jacobs) didn’t get ahead a whole lot today,” said Yarmouth Coach Marc Halsted.

“There was a lot of 2-1 and 3-1 counts but he was able to keep the ball down and in the zone to get his ground balls and he didn’t walk a single guy. He was the model of efficiency.”

Halsted saw what he expected on both sides of the ball.

The Clippers turned in a fundamentally sound performance defensively while manufacturing runs in lieu of a potent offense.

Caleb Uhl set the offensive tone for Yarmouth to open the scoring.

Uhl reached on an error — one of six in the game committed by Wells (0-2) — stole second, moved to third on a groundout by Mike Smith and scored on an error to give the Clippers a 1-0 lead.

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“That’s who we are,” said Halsted. “We’re going to be a fundamentally sound team that creates offense out of smart baseball, good base running and trying to take advantage of other people’s mistakes. We just have to do the little things right and we can be successful.”

Connor Lainey accounted for the other two Clippers runs, both in similar fashion.

He reached on an error to lead off the second inning and was driven home by a single by Ethan Perrier to give Yarmouth a 2-0 lead.

The same combination struck again in the fourth inning to make it 3-0.

“We just have guys that have to gain some confidence,” said Wells Coach Todd Day.

“We’re a reasonably inexperienced team at the varsity level but we’ll get there, we just have to make the key plays. “

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We had a couple of innings where we made some very good plays defensively. We just need to do that on a more consistent basis.”

The Warriors scored in the seventh.

Bennie McMinnis (0-2) started and took the loss. He allowed three runs on two hits in four innings.

 


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