BIDDEFORD — Saco Bay PT, the American Legion team drawing from York and Wells High Schools, has just two players from Wells on the roster this summer, a number manager Chuck Chadbourne admitted was “a bit disappointing.”

But if Tuesday night is anything to go by, one of those Warriors should be quite the nice addition.

Bennie McMinnis, a junior at Wells, struck out six and allowed just one hit in four innings, and Dan Bock came on to give up just one run in three innings of relief as Saco Bay beat Biddeford Savings 3-1 at St. Louis Field.

“(McMinnis) is a pretty darn good pitcher,” said Chadbourne, whose team is largely comprised of players from Class B state champions York. “I’m very happy we have him. He did a nice job tonight.”

McMinnis was just 2-6 for a Wells team that went 3-14 this spring, but Tuesday he showed off a good fastball-curveball combination to keep the Biddeford Savings ”“ comprised of players from Biddeford High School ”“ lineup off-balance and off the base paths.

“They did a nice job throwing strikes and getting ahead in counts,” Biddeford manager Keith Leblanc said. “We swung at a lot of pitches that were a little out of the zone, getting him ahead in the count and then he was able to get guys out with his curveball and keep us off-balance.”

Biddeford’s lone scoring chance off McMinnis came in the first, when Corey Creeger reached on an error and stole second.

Creeger had a chance to score when Casey Twomey’s grounder up the middle bounced off second baseman Kyle Cone’s glove. But Creeger hesitated rounding third, allowing shortstop Matt Pratt, who had made the error earlier in the inning, to retrieve the ball and gun down Creeger at the plate.

“Any type of momentum shift like that is helpful,” Leblanc said. “We’re not a team that’s going to score a ton of runs, so any type of run we can get we need to get when that opportunity arises.”

Saco Bay (1-0) scored in the second, when three-straight two-out singles off Biddeford (1-1) pitcher Patrick Wilson loaded the bases for Cone, who worked the count full and walked.

Cone, the nine-hole hitter, was again at the center of things in the fourth, with his two-out single to center scoring Adam Bailey, who, an inning later, knocked a RBI single to make the score 3-0.

“We got some nice production from the seven, eight and nine guys,” Chadbourne said. “We strung a few together. I couldn’t be happier.”

McMinnis was relieved after four innings despite largely dominating the Biddeford lineup, part of Chadbourne’s legion philosophy of keeping his pitchers fresh.

Bock, though, didn’t miss a beat. He allowed a Wilson sacrifice fly that scored Taylor Reuillard in the sixth, but retired the side in order in the seventh for the three-inning save.

Along with Bailey, who threw a complete game in York’s 4-1 win over Winslow in Saturday’s Class B state championship game, McMinnis and Bock should give Chadbourne one of the better staffs in Zone 5.

“I think we’re going to be competitive,” Chadbourne said. “We’re going to have good pitching, and we’re going to have some young kids who will have to learn to hit varsity pitching.”

Learning to hit solid pitching will also be the challenge for Biddeford, which managed just four hits total Tuesday and has only part of the high school’s varsity team from this spring on the roster.

“It’s a learning curve,” Leblanc said. “A lot of these guys have only seen JV pitching, and obviously the speed of this game is much faster than that, so it takes some time to get used to and adjust to these better pitchers.”

— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 323.