GRAY – The Gray-New Gloucester baseball team shook off a four-run York inning to come back and beat the Wildcats 5-4 in a Class B West playoff game on Tuesday afternoon.

The win moves the Patriots into a quarterfinal matchup with top-seeded Yarmouth on Thursday, a game that was played after the Lakes Region Weekly’s deadline.

Adam Healy picked up the win on the mound for the Patriots in four innings of work. Ryan Cavallaro came on in the seventh inning and slammed the door on York, picking up the save.

After the game, Gray-New Gloucester Head Coach Nolan Beckwith said that over the past three weeks, his team has been playing its best baseball of the season, and that showed in the win over York. “This team is just stating to click now,” he said. “We’re playing some great ball and I couldn’t be happier for the guys, they’ve busted their tails all year.”

The Patriots jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning as Cavallaro, who walked and stole two bases in the inning, scored on an RBI single from Tim Lerette.

The score stayed at 1-0 until the top of the fourth inning when the York bats finally started to heat up. Devin Merritt walked to lead things off and after Healy got Alex Mercurio to strike out, Ryan Schoff lined an RBI single into right to score Merritt and tie things at 1-1. Anthony Sciaudone smacked another single and after a Tim Connolly fly out, Chris Cole put the Wildcats on top with a ground rule double to deep center. York also got back-to-back RBI singles from Zach Leal and Jack Radke to make it 4-1 before the Patriots were able to get out of the inning.

But if the big inning bothered the Patriots, they didn’t let it show. They merely came up in the bottom of the inning and got the four runs right back to retake the lead.

Austin Keenan led off with a solid single, and with one out, Jordan Rice moved him over with a single of his own. After a Jeff Taylor foul pop to the catcher, Kevin Cavallaro came up and ripped a single to right that allowed Keenan and Rice to score after an error that also allowed Cavallaro to get all the way to third on the play.

Aaron Boulos tied things at four by ripping a double to right center and he came around to score and give the Patriots the 5-4 lead on a long RBI single to center by Ryan Cavallaro.

York was unable to mount any response to the Patriot offensive explosion as Gray-New Gloucester kept them off the board to hang on for the win.

Beckwith said that the Patriots never let the York rally bother them, as the team knew it still had time to get back into the game. “We knew we had four at-bats left,” he said. “We had a lot of chances (to pull things out).”

Adam Healy was the winning pitcher as Gray-New Gloucester came from behind to top York 5-4 on Tuesday. (Staff photo by Mike Higgins)