BASEBALL

Scarborough 0

Windham 4

WINDHAM – The Windham baseball team may have lost its last two regular season games, but the Eagles can feel good that it is heading into the Class A West playoffs with Cody Dube as their top pitcher.

Dube, who lost a tough 1-0 game to defending state champion Cheverus on Wednesday, threw a complete game one-hitter March 24 to beat Scarborough 4-0 in Windham. Dube finished with 13 strikeouts to record his fifth win of the season.

Dube has been making a habit of these kinds of performances. He has been his team’s ace from start of the season when Coach Mike Fullerton proclaimed him as one of the best in the state. He’s been utilized like one, too.

Dube has now shut down the league’s other top two teams (Marshwood and Scarborough), thrown eight innings of one-run baseball against the defending state champs (Cheverus), and breezed through Westbrook, Massabesic and Sanford. Those are six playoff teams, 41 innings of work, and one run against the league’s toughest competition.

Dube faced his toughest challenge of the season taking on a Red Storm team that had won eight in row entering the day. Needless to say, it didn’t seem to faze him.

“It was a big win for him,” said Fullerton. “He’s a kid who competes every game. It doesn’t matter if it’s the last-place team or the first-place team, he’s going to come with the same attitude. He’s very thorough with the way he prepares for games. Its definitely something that’s rare for a high school baseball player.”

With runs at a premium with Joe Cronin on the mound for the Red Storm, Dube knew that he was going to have to have to have his best stuff.

“Every day my goal is to come out and not give up any runs,” Dube said. “That’s what is going to give our team a chance to win.”

With Dube throwing up zeros, the only job left for the Eagles was to force across some runs for their horse on the mound.

Matt McLean got the scoring started for the Eagles with an RBI single in the first inning to score McGyver Poulin, who had led off with an infield hit and advanced to third on a throwing error.

In the fourth, Cronin struggled with his command, walking Joe Francoeur to start the inning and hitting Poulin two batters later. Robbie Hamilton cleared the bases with a standup double after his sharp grounder exploded on the infield dirt and scooted into the gap in left center to make it 4-0.

“That’s what (Hamilton) does,” said Fullerton. “He’s a big situation hitter. Pressure doesn’t phase him and he seems to always come through when he’s in that situation.

“He’s doing a lot of great things for us this season.”

Dube took care of the rest as he mowed down the Red Storm, recording five of the final nine outs by way of the K.

“Dube pitched great today,” said Red Storm coach Mike Coutts. “They just played a little bit better than we did, that’s all.”

While a loss to arguably the best pitcher in the state is nothing to hang their heads on, the fact that it came on the same day Ben Wessel was scheduled to hear the results of his MRI must have made it even tougher to swallow.

Wessel, who had been the Red Storm’s ace this season, left Tuesday’s win over Westbrook with an arm injury. Ben Greenberg has also joined him on the bench with tendinitis in his throwing arm.

“We lose Wessel and Greenberg, I mean, we’ll see,” said Coutts. “We’ve talked about not using that as an excuse. We’ve talked about handling what we can handle and so forth. It’s one game that we lost, I think we’ll see more on Saturday and what happens on Tuesday then we get ready for the tournament. At lease we’ve put ourselves in a good position.”

As for the Eagles, their spirits couldn’t be higher.

“We’ve won 11 in row, and as far as the momentum, we just have to keep it going,” said Fullerton. “These kids are competitors and the best thing I can say about them is that they are a team.”

Cody Dube picked up his fifth win of the season on May 24 after throwing a complete game one-hitter and striking out 13 Red Storm batters.