OLD TOWN, Maine — The Old Town Coyotes have done a good job eliminating late-inning drama from their baseball games this spring.
And early uprisings are one reason coach Brad Goody’s club is the lone remaining undefeated team in the state.
Old Town scored seven runs in the bottom of the second inning Thursday, more than enough to support Eric Hoogterp’s four-hit pitching as the Coyotes improved to 10-0 with an 11-2 victory over Foxcroft Academy.
“That’s been our forte this year, we’ve jumped on teams early and kind of cooled off as the game’s gone on, but it’s definitely good to get to double-digit wins,” said Goody, whose team averages 9.7 runs per outing and has had just one contest decided by fewer than three runs.
This game matched the top two Penobscot Valley Conference teams in the Eastern Maine Class B Heal points, with Old Town the No. 1 seed and Foxcroft (6-3) ranked seventh.
But like their April 28 meeting in Dover-Foxcroft when Old Town used a six-run third-inning uprising as the catalyst for a 12-3 win, the Coyotes struck again early in the rematch and never allowed the Ponies to generate any momentum.
“It’s definitely our defense and our hitting, especially our hitting because we’re probably the best-hitting team in our league,” said Hoogterp, who contributed a two-run single and an RBI double to Old Town’s nine-hit attack. “We put up a lot of hits each game, and every day in practice we put in some serious work.”
Hoogterp’s mound presence could be defined by a single word: precision. Of the 90 pitches he required during a complete-game effort, the senior right-hander threw 70 strikes.
“We always preach to get that first pitch over, get ahead and stay ahead,” said Goody. “It’s always tough to get down 0-2 as a batter, and Eric did a good job of getting ahead of the batters today.”
Hoogterp struck out 10 and walked just one while limiting Foxcroft to a pair of unearned runs on a two-run single by Abe Simpson in the top of the third.
“I stick with my fastball and my curve, and they were definitely working today,” he said.
Old Town capitalized on two Foxcroft errors to score an unearned run in the bottom of the first, then had its first eight batters reach base an inning later against Simpson, the Ponies’ starting pitcher.
Adam Richardson walked, Braden Upshaw flared a single to right and D.J. Monteith reached on an infield error to load the bases. A walk to Ethan Stoddard, back-to-back singles by Kaleb Gifford and T.J. Crawford and another walk to Tyler Byther all plated a run apiece as the Old Town lead grew to 5-0.
Then Hoogterp delivered the big hit of the inning, greeting reliever Nate Church with a two-run single to left.
After Church induced a double-play grounder from Tyler Young, Richardson walked for the second time in the inning and then got caught in a rundown between first and second bases that allowed Hoogterp to score from third with the final run of the inning.
Old Town scored its final three runs in the sixth as Hoogterp hit an RBI double to the right-center field gap to go with an RBI infield single by pinch-hitter Adam Sheehan and a fielder’s choice grounder by Upshaw that also delivered a run.
Hoogterp and Gifford each had two hits for Old Town.
