GORHAM — The visiting Massabesic baseball team fell 3-1 to Gorham Tuesday night in the Class A South preliminary round.

Massabesic struggled at the plate for much of the game, only collecting three hits on the day.

Massabesic coach Leon Renaud was impressed with Gorham’s pitching and fielding Tuesday.

“When (Gorham pitcher) Logan Drouin was on he was controlling the strike zone, changing up speeds and making it hard. Then, whatever hits we would have, they would make the routine play and that’s the name of the game. Cam (Smith) then came in and was just different enough and it made it tough,” said Renaud.

Gorham scored its first run in the second inning off a Jackson Taylor RBI. The Rams second run came in the third off an RBI single from Lucas Roop, followed by another RBI single in the sixth from Smith.

Massabesic’s lone run was scored in the fifth inning when Jacob Gregoire got home on a passed ball.

The Mustangs missed an opportunity to do more damage in the fifth, at one point having the bases loaded with one out. Smith would be called in for relief and proceeded to strike out the next two batters to escape the jam.

“We definitely missed an opportunity with the bases loaded, that was when we should have scored at least one more run,” said Renaud.

Renaud was also disappointed in his team’s defense, which committed untimely errors that resulted in two unearned runs.

“That’s been our downfall all year, the unearned runs are the ones that end up costing us,” said Renaud.

Weston Bergeron pitched for Massabesic, allowing one earned run on seven hits while recording four strikeouts.

Logan Drouin got the start for the Rams, pitching 4 1/3 innings and allowing one run on two hits while striking out four. Smith pitched the remaining 2 2/3, allowing no runs on one hit with four strikeouts.

Although the Mustangs suffered an early playoff exit, plenty of progress has been made since last year’s down season.

“We had a number of kids that had not played baseball in awhile. Tyus (Sprague Ripley) was coming off a great basketball season for us and stepped in here and was immediately one of the guys. Josh Daigle was a vacuum (in centerfield), he made every play. It was a good group, everyone on the team contributed in some way shape or form,” said Renaud.

With a handful of graduating seniors, Massabesic will likely be rebuilding next year.

“We are graduating quite a few seniors so we will definitely be rebuilding. We have a lot of talented freshman and eighth graders behind them so it won’t be too long … we will definitely have some young players at big positions. As long as we are better at the end of the year than the beginning then we have accomplished our goal.”

— Sports Staff Writer Alex Sponseller can be reached at [email protected] or at 282-1535 ext. 323. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.