The Hampden Riverdogs begin defense of their State Senior American Legion baseball championship on Tuesday when the eight-team, double-elimination tournament starts in Augusta.
The tournament will be held at the Morton and McGuire fields at the Capitol Area Babe Ruth League Complex located on Piggery Road. It was formerly known as the Capitol Area Recreation Association complex.
There will be four teams from the northern division and four from the southern division and the winner will represent the state at the Northeast Regional Tournament on Aug. 2-6 in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
Hampden will open the tournament at 10 a.m. at Morton Field against Central Maine B, which includes players from Fairfield, Waterville and Winslow. That will be followed at 1 p.m. by the game between the Trenton Acadians from Ellsworth, Mount Desert Island and Blue Hill and Skowhegan.
At McGuire Field, the C & L Aviation Comrades from Bangor will face the Franklin County Flyers from the Farmington area at 11 a.m. with the Old Town-Orono Twins taking on Ware Butler from the Oakland area at 2 p.m.
Hampden and Trenton shared the North Division title with 12-4 records but Trenton earned the top seed via a tiebreaker. The teams split their four regular season games.
On Wednesday at 10 a.m. at McGuire Field, the losers of the Hampden-Central Maine B and Trenton-Skowhegan games will play an elimination contest. At McGuire, the losers of the Comrades-Flyers and Twins-Ware Butler games will square off at 11 a.m. in an elimination game.
The winners bracket games on Wednesday will feature Tuesday’s McGuire Field winners at 1 p.m. at McGuire and the Tuesday’s Morton Field victors tangling at 2 p.m. at Morton.
The tournament continues through Saturday with the championship round being held at McGuire on Saturday at 10:30 a.m., with the if-necessary game to follow.
The Junior American Legion Tournament will also be held in Augusta with a four-team field in the double-elimination affair.
It gets underway on Thursday with the Hampden Riverhawks taking on Capitol Area from Augusta at 10 a.m. at Morton, and Trenton facing Skowhegan at 11 a.m. at McGuire.
Perry has a solid nucleus back from last year’s Riverdogs championship team and said even though his team hasn’t hit as well as he had hoped, they are still a legitimate contender.
“We have had solid pitching and great defense and we have gotten timely hits,” Perry said. “I like the way the team has battled all summer.”
He said to win the tournament his team will need to capitalize on its opportunities and not give teams extra outs in an inning by making errors.
All-league first team selections Kaysen Wildman, a pitcher, and left fielder Aidan Halsey have sparked the Riverdogs along with second team picks Bodie Bishop, Collin Peckham and Garrett McLeod. Bishop is a pitcher-third baseman, Peckham is a right fielder-pitcher and McLeod is a utility player.
Shortstop T.J. Llerena has hit over .500 but didn’t play in enough games to qualify for all league honors, according to Perry. Llerena and center fielder Kam Hale have been two of the defensive stalwarts.
Lefthander Ethan Phelps, who tossed six innings and picked up the win in the 4-1 championship game win over Bessey Motors a year ago, has had an impressive summer on the mound, Perry said.
Trenton was paced by Pitcher of the Year Craig Burnett and Husson University’s right fielder and All-North Atlantic Conference Rookie of the Year Hunter Curtis. The Comrades feature Player of the Year Matt Holmes, a pitcher-first baseman, and UMaine-bound lefthanded pitcher Gabe Gifford has led Old Town-Orono.
Gifford threw a two-hitter to give Old Town High a 1-0 win over Yarmouth in the Class B state championship baseball game this spring.
