Trojans get stormed by Scarborough

SCARBOROUGH — The Thornton Academy baseball team did indeed run into a storm on a bright, sunny Friday afternoon.

Instead of a Red Storm, it was a one person Scarborough strikeout tornado named Ryan Mancini.

The Golden Trojans dropped their second consecutive game, losing 4-1 to the Red Storm on Friday afternoon.

Mancini, a senior, struck out nine batters while allowing three hits and one run. He didn’t allow his first hit until Fred Randall raked a single up the middle of the field in the top of fifth inning. Mancini mixed his fastball with sharp curveballs, leaving several Trojans swinging in the dirt.

“We weren’t very patient out there,” Thornton head coach Ray Petit said. “We didn’t sit back and read the pitch.”

A rough first inning on defense also hurt Thornton, allowing the Red Storm to take a quick 2-0 lead.

After Scarborough second baseman Jack Adams led the inning off with a single, Kevin Philbrick reached first on an error. Joe Cronin hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score Adams, and Philbrick scored moments later for the 2-0 lead.

“We were flat, the way we played defensively,” Petit said. “Gelinas pitched a good game. When you’ve got a guy throwing the ball well and we fall behind 2-0 ”¦ if we fall behind 2-0 or 2-1 in the sixth, then it might be a whole different story, it could be a whole different game.”

Scarborough scored again in the bottom of the second, when Ben Wessel smacked a Gelinas pitch off the left field wall, plating Cronin on an RBI triple.

Cronin scored again in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI single by Kyle Kelley, giving the Red Storm a 4-0 lead.

Wessel led all Scarborough hitters, going 2-for-3. Besides scoring three runs, Cronin also stole three bases.

Thornton scored its lone run in the seventh inning. With one out, Gelinas hit a single to left and moved to second on a wild pitch. Gelinas scored one batter later, when Cronin made a throwing error after a groundball hit by Alex Newton, breaking up the shutout effort by Mancini.

Life does not get easier for the Trojans in the upcoming schedule. Thornton plays Marshwood, Biddeford and Westbrook next week, all top-tier talent in Western Maine Class A.

“We just had a discussion [in the post-game huddle],” Petit said. “We’ve got to show up and be ready to play early. We weren’t here to play early today, and it showed.”

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