East Hampton Picks Up Where it Left Off

It was back to business for the defending Class S state champs.

Adam Michaud had four hits, two RBI and pitched four scoreless innings of one-hit ball as East Hampton opened its season with an 11-0 victory on a windswept Wednesday afternoon in Portland.

Joe Tuxbury, Marvin Gorgas and Spencer Daly added two hits each as the Bellringers totaled 11 to go with four walks and a hit batter.

With several holes to fill in its lineup entering the season, East Hampton could not have asked for many more positives to take away from the season opener.

“They stayed focused right from the start,” coach Scott Wosleger said. “They had really good at-bats. Adam had a little bit of location issues early, but other than that, the pitching was good, the defense was pretty good and we had good at-bats. We kept the foot on the throttle the whole game through, which I was happy with.”

The Bellringers jumped on Portland starter Jason Staub for three runs in the first. Nate Heroux reached on a one-out walk and Gorgas singled before Michaud hit a two-run single and Daly followed by driving in Michaud with another single. East Hampton then added a run in the second inning and two in the third before putting the game away with a five-run fifth.

Handed a three-run lead, Michaud struggled some with his control in the first. The senior righthander loaded the bases on walks before getting Emanuel Cruz to ground to second for the final out of the inning.

“Overall, I thought he was pretty good,” Wosleger said of Michaud. “He competes so hard. ... He could have gone all seven but we wanted to space it out a little bit so we have guys ready for Friday.”

Michaud said his arm felt good and there were no issues.

“The three runs in the first did help a lot,” he said.

With an 11-0 lead, Wosleger turned to Matt Sevigny for a couple innings of relief. The sophomore allowed one hit in his varsity debut on the mound.

“He’s been good in the preseason and he was good today, and you can tell by his expression that not too much bothers him,” Wosleger said. “We’re happy. He goes out in his first varsity game and does that kind of work."

Who would step up and fill the void left by key departures from last year’s team was a key question in the preseason. Wednesday was only the first step toward finding out the answer, but it was a big one and Wosleger seemed pleased with the contributions he got.

“For our first game, I thought we executed very well,” he said. “I thought [Brian] Foberg, [Zack] Harrington and Sevigny at third to start off, did a great job, and the fourth spot was [Ryan] Massie. Massie had a great day. He hit the ball well and he made that play at first base to keep Portland off the board. If he doesn’t make that play, they score a couple of runs and maybe it gets a little tighter.”

As he did so many times last season, Gorgas came in to close the game. After allowing a lead-off single in the seventh, he struck out the next three to end the it.

Coming off a 2-15 record last season, Portland coach Rick Borg is optimistic his team will rebound in 2012.

“We were tight,” he said of Wednesday's result. “I think we’re a much better team than we showed today. East Hampton played with the confidence of a state champion and we had the tightness of a program that’s trying to build something.”

Staub singled in the fourth inning for Portland’s first hit. Hayden Manning added a single in the sixth and Matt Ryan singled in the seventh.

“I think we’re a better team at every position this year,” Borg said. “We’re still not among the elite in the league, but we’ll be much better.”

Next up for Portland is Old Saybrook on the road on Friday at 10:30 a.m. East Hampton will host Cromwell, also on Friday at 10:30 a.m.