Gorham baseball coach Rocky Myers walked across the diamond toward Massabesic coach Kevin Poulin following Saturday’s game between the two teams, and, before even reaching the pitcher’s mound, he began apologizing.

“That’s gross,” Myers could be heard saying. “I wish we could just call it a tie.”

The Mustangs, who led by a pair of runs in the seventh after getting six shutout innings from starting pitcher Craig Foss, lost 3-2 on the road thanks to a bloop single and a pair of errors.

Gorham’s Craig Woodrey led off the inning with a triple over the right fielder’s head. Andrew Dean and Jon Crawford followed with walks to load the bases.

Poulin responded by bringing in knuckleballer Nick Cessario

“That’s our rule of thumb, generally,” he said. “Nick’s going to be the guy that comes in in those situations.”

Poulin’s other move was to bump the outfield back. His thinking was simple: anything that rolled to the fence could potentially clear the bases and give the Rams the walk-off win. A blooper would score just a run – or so he thought.

When Luke Barks threw his bat at one of Cessario’s knucklers, he made just enough contact to punch the ball into right field. Bryan Bassinger charged, scooped up the ball cleanly and threw home, trying to gun down Woodbrey, who held up long enough to make it a close play at the plate.

The ball skipped up over catcher Ryan Knight, though, as Woodbrey slid in safely, and Dean chugged around to tie the game.

But the mayhem wasn’t over yet.

Knight scrambled to the backstop, grabbed the ball and quickly threw over the head of Cessario, who was covering at home. The miscue allowed Crawford – at this point rounding third – to cross the plate for the third and final run.

Madness ensued. The Rams, 2-0 for the season after the win, emptied out of their dugout on the third base line and swarmed the batter’s box to give Crawford an affectionate pounding.

“It’s unfortunate,” said Myers. “That kid pitched a great game, and it’s one of those that … well, in baseball, it’s a tough game. You’ve got to play it until the end and that’s what happens. There’s not really a whole lot more you can say about that.”

Foss held the Rams to just two hits over the first six innings on Saturday, and didn’t let a runner advance past second base. The Massabesic offense, meanwhile, may not have hit Gorham starter Sam Sturgis hard, but the Mustangs did have a 2-0 lead when final inning began.

The first run came in the top of the third. Basinger led off with a single to right, then moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by shortstop Adam Rosenthal. Cessario followed with a grounder that got past Scott MacDonald and scored Basinger.

The Mustangs made it 2-0 in the top of the sixth on another error, this one by Sturgis. Knight reached on a walk and moved to second on a single by Quentin Loe. Foss then hit a double-play chopper at Sturgis. It was handled cleanly, but the throw was low, and the ball hopped into center, allowing Knight to score.

It could’ve been worse, though. Woodbrey closed out the inning and forced the Mustangs to leave the bases loaded.

“We just kept battling, and we had a feeling we were going to turn the tides a little bit,” said Sturgis. “We just had to be real enthusiastic and we had a pretty good feeling that we were going to win.”

As fluky as the final inning may have been, the confidence ultimately paid off for the Rams.

“It’s high school sports,” said Myers. “You feel bad for them. I do. Some coaches may not, but that’s one where you do feel bad for them because it was a good game. But I’m also pleased with how we stuck with it and closed it out.”

So, how do the Mustangs rebound?

“You’ve just got to tell (the kids) to bounce back, keep playing hard,” said Poulin. “You’ve got to believe in yourself. It’s a long season. This is a very good baseball team and if we can play this well against a good baseball team like this we can certainly beat teams. That’s the way we have to approach it.”