Dover Post 8 over comes slow start, beats Concord Post 21

NASHUA – David Roleau wasn’t worried when his Dover Post 8 baseball team couldn’t get going during the first four innings of Thursday’s game against Concord Post 21.

All year, Dover’s offense has taken some time to get going, and Post 8’s first game of the American Legion Senior baseball tournament was no different.

After Concord took a 1-0 lead in the top of the fifth, Dover answered with four runs in the bottom of the inning and added three more in the seventh to knock off Post 21 7-2 in the third game of the day.

Ryan Hayden, Aaron Denis and Jordan Goss each had an RBI single in the fifth and Connor Rittenhouse added a two-run single in the seventh as Dover chased Concord starter Jon Lewis in the fourth inning. Lewis, who pitched a lot in the last week to get Concord in the tournament, went 4 2/3 innings and gave up four runs on six hits and three walks.

“That was kind of our plan, make (Lewis) throw pitches,” Roleau said. “The way these kids have been, if we score early, it’s an anomaly. It takes my team about once through the order. They see the guy once, after that they start hitting the ball. We’ve been through it once, we know what he’s doing, let’s do it.”

Robby Sheldon got the win for Dover, as he allowed two runs on seven hits and a walk while striking out seven in six innings, and Casey Aubin pitched three shutout innings of relief.

Concord had chances to keep the game closer, but left nine runners on base in the final five innings, which included leaving the bases loaded in the sixth.

“Sixth inning, we strand the bases loaded; seventh inning, we strand second and third,” Concord coach Matt Skoby said. “That’s five runners right there and we didn’t step up and get that big hit. I still think we can score some runs and we can get the big hit. We had guys on base, we just didn’t produce.”

Both Lewis and Sheldon cruised through the first four innings, and got help from their defenses. But after throwing 115 pitches in a win over Bedford a week ago, and 60 in a win on Sunday, Lewis began to signs of fatigue.

“Jon Lewis has been great for us all year,” Skoby said. “It’s tough. Last week killed us for pitching. He’s on three days rest, so he didn’t have his best stuff and it was clear, so I had to pull him early. Usually when we score first and he has a lead, he’s pretty dominant. It’s too bad he didn’t have his best stuff. That’s the way it is for us right now.”

Despite that, one big hit might have made the difference for Concord, but with the bases loaded in the sixth, Sheldon struck out Chris Fournier to end the inning. Then, with runners at second and third in the seventh, Aubin got Chris Gauss to ground out to stop the threat, and the first six batters for Dover reached safely in the bottom of the inning, as Post 8 broke the game open.

“When you can stop them, when you can score and shut them down, it’s huge at this level,” Roleau said. “It’s 18-year-old kids, it doesn’t take much to get them off their focus. Our defense was stellar (Thursday) and that’s always kept us in the game.”