Twins battling for playoff spot

Second-year Old Town-Orono American Legion Coach Dave Paul is looking for a little magic like the kind that transformed a 2-5 team into a qualifier for the State American Legion Tournament a year ago.

The Twins won 10 of their last 14 Zone 1 games last season, including a 16-1 second-place playoff game triumph over Bangor, to earn the state tourney berth. The Twins went 1-2 in the state tourney to finish at 13-11.

This season, Old Town-Orono is 6-5 and in third place, two games behind Brewer in the battle for second place. The Twins are 4 1/2 games behind Zone 1 leader Skowhegan.

“We’ve got 13 games to go and if we can win six or seven in a row like we did last year, we’d be sitting in real good shape,” said Paul.

Paul described the season to date as being a “struggle.”

His team won its first four games, lost its next three, won its next two and has now lost its last two.

“We win one and lose one,” said Paul, whose team can’t afford to have the current trend continue if it is to make the state tourney.

His Twins are hitting .295 and averaging 6.4 runs per game. The team has a 3.85 ERA. The Twins have averaged 2.3 errors a game, but they have made just one error over their last four games.

“For the most part, the pitching has been good,” said Paul. “The defense has been adequate although we’re playing better defensively now. We’ve got to get some timely hits.”

Old Town-Orono has scored only four runs in its last two games.

“I think the guys are trying to do too much by themselves,” said Paul. “At times, we swing at a lot of bad pitches and let the good pitches go by.”

The most productive hitters have been third baseman Jim Evans (.486, 11 RBIs) and 1990 All-Zone 1 first team outfielder Steve Coombs (.387, 11 runs, 5 RBIs, 6 stolen bases), who is the left fielder.

Also producing have been: CF David Theriault (.342, 6 RBIs, 5 SBs), 1B-P Mitch Stone (.320) and SS Matt Eastman (.316, 9 runs, 8 RBIs). Reserve infielder Jay Blackwell has chipped in with 5 hits in 14 at-bats (.357) and five RBis.

Second team All-Zone OF Aaron Knowles, a .295 hitter a year ago, has struggled to a .233 start, but has driven in 8 runs. First baseman-P Aaron King is at .250; DH Zac Pelleriti is hitting .235 and Paul is hoping 2B Aaron Humphrey (.192) and C Paul Bosse (.115) can battle their way out of slumps.

The top three starting pitchers have been King (2-2, 1 save, 2.56), Coombs (1-2, 6.91) and Stone (2-0, 1.75). Rob LeBlanc is 1-1 with a 5.83 ERA and Mark Thibodeau has no record and has yet to allow an earned run in 5 1/3 innings.

Old Town-Orono has five games this week, including two with Skowhegan and one with Brewer.