LISBON FALLS

If the Lisbon High School baseball team had the ability to hop back into a time machine and travel back to the start of Thursday’s Western C quarterfinal baseball game against Maranacook, the outcome might have been a little different.

Defensively, the host Greyhounds, who entered the game as the No. 4 seed, committed four errors in the field that proved to be deadly in the end as the fifth-seeded Black Bears captured the 7- 3 victory.

Maranacook moves on to the semifinals against No. 8 St. Dom’s, which upset No. 1 Dirigo on Thursday, 5-2.

Three of the four errors came in the third inning, which led to five unearned runs, but still on the hands of Lisbon starter Kyle Bourget.

“You can’t make mistakes in the playoffs and hope it’s not going to hurt you,” Greyhounds head coach Randy Ridley said after the game. “You can maybe get away with one, but if you give a team two, three extra chances in an inning they’re just going to take care of business and that’s what Maranacook did.”

Both teams put runners on in the first inning, but Bourget and Black Bears’ starter Dan Garand were able to work their way out of the jams. However, in the second inning, Connor Ireland trotted down to first after being hit by a pitch to lead things off for the Black Bears. Bourget struck out Logan McLaughlin, but Ireland stole second and advanced to third on a bunt off the bat of Vinnie Birtwell.

With two outs on the board, Matt Gyorgy walked to put runners at the corners and a Kent Mohlar single to right field brought in Ireland for the game’s first run, followed by Gyorgy, who had stolen second and crossed the plate on Mohlar’s base knock.

Trailing 2-0 in the second, Lisbon was able to take advantage of two Maranacook errors. Nick Lerette blooped a shot into left field, but was retired on a fielder’s choice play that put Riley Austin at first. After a wild pitch put Austin at second, RJ Sargent dumped a single into right field, and a throwing error allowed Austin to score and put Sargent at third after the ball went out of play.

Two batters later, Tyler Halls drilled a ball to short, and the second Maranacook fielding error allowed the Greyhounds to tie the game at two.

However, from that point forward Garand took over and limited the ’Hounds to just one more run in the fourth when Noah Francis scored on a wild pitch. The freshman Black Bear allowed just five hits over a full seveninning slate, while collecting seven strikeouts and walking only two over 104 pitches.

“He did a great job, he’s a freshman, big kid at 6-foot-3, 215 pounds, he’s solid,” Black Bears head coach Eric Brown said. “He gives it all every time he goes out. Every time he’s on the field he gets the whole team fired up, he gives it everything he’s got.”

“He lived on the outside and threw it low,” Bourget said of Garand. “That’s what helped him a lot and hurt us. He did a great job picking his spots, we couldn’t hit him.”

In the fourth inning, the Black Bears put the game away with five runs. Bourget had a runner on second with two outs, but a throwing error changed it all as McLaughlin, Max McQuillen, Mohlar, Mark Buzzell and Jason Brooks all scored in the inning.

Despite sustaining the loss, the numbers swung in the favor of Bourget. The senior tossed an astounding 133 pitches, while striking out 12 in his complete-game stint. The strong righty gave up only four hits in the process.

“I felt good today, I mean I was hitting my spots,” Bourget said. “I had a couple of innings where I walked a few guys and that hurt us a little bit. But, toward the end I got dialed in more, my curveball started working better and I started throwing more strikes.”

“He pitched a great game and he did his job,” Ridley said of Bourget. “The defense just didn’t do theirs, which is what we should’ve done. We make mistakes in the playoffs and they become glaring, they magnify more and more because there are no easy games in the playoffs.”

Six seniors depart from the Greyhounds squad, including Bourget, Sargent, Joe Philbrick, Darren Ward, Adam Desjardins and Eric Kane.

For Bourget, his time with Lisbon will stick with him as he transitions into baseball for Husson University starting in the fall.

“Baseball is my number one sport and I’ve loved it here,” he said. “I had a great four years, we just grew as a team. My freshman year we weren’t much, sophomore year we were even worse. But, the last couple of years we got better. We were the four seed this year and got top four which we were looking for, it just didn’t work out in the end.”