‘Jacks rally twice to sweep twinbill Bangor plays last game today

ORONO – In a game unlike any other for Bangor this season, the Lumberjacks pulled out a dramatic 4-3 victory over the North Shore Spirit in the first game of a Sunday twi-night doubleheader before their largest crowd of the season.

Although it’s late to arrive, the magic continued into the second game as the Lumberjacks scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh for another come-from-behind 4-3 victory.

In the second game, Juan LeBron led off by stretching a single into a double before being bunted over to third by Todd Brock. Barry Paulk then ran the count full after Joe Ricciardi relieved starting pitcher Tim Hart before hitting a hard chopper down the line over first baseman Fran Riordan’s head for the game-tying hit. Pinch-hitter Mark Burke, the hero of game one, moved Paulk over to second with a groundout and then Sandy Martinez, who was 2-for-2, hit an 0-1 pitch to left for his third single of the game and the game-winning RBI.

The late heroics made a winner out of reliever Orlando Woodards, who improved to 5-0 and won the distinction of being the winning pitcher in both ends of the doubleheader with 1 2/3 innings of relief.

In the first game, Burke’s double to right center in his first at-bat scored Brock from second with the winning run in the bottom of the seventh after Brock singled with a hot shot deep to third and advanced to second on a throwing error by third baseman Jason Startari.

“He gave me a fastball inside and Kash [Beauchamp] told me before my at-bat that if Todd got to second to just get on the dish and try to yank something to get the runner over,” said Burke. “I got up on the dish and got something to yank.”

Brock never broke stride at first as a packed Mahaney Diamond crowd looked on.

“I saw it was getting by him out of the corner of my eye and kept on running,” Brock said. “It is good to get these kind of wins, but it’s a little bittersweet because you kind of wonder what we could have done this year if we’d done this earlier.”

Bangor is now 21-24 with one game left in the Northeast League season. North Shore of Lynn, Mass., is now 25-20.

North Shore took a 2-1 lead with one swing of the bat in the second. After Robert Fischer reached on a throwing error by third baseman Brock, he came home on a 350-foot homer to left by Fran Riordan.

The Spirit pushed the lead to 3-1 in the fifth as Yuri Sanchez led off with a walk, went to second on a balk, and scored on a two-out single by Eddie Muth, but Bangor answered in its half of the same inning.

Brad Hargreaves was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning. Two outs later, he moved to second before scoring on a triple to the right center warning track by Schuyler Doakes. Doakes scored on Barry Paulk’s pinch-hit single up the middle.

GAME NOTES – The Lumberjacks got involved in their first dugout-clearing confrontation of the season in game one after Fischer was tagged out on a groundout to first in the top of the seventh. Fischer ran into first baseman Donnie Ross as Ross awaited him on the first baseline to tag him out. Ross objected to being run into and had words with Fischer before the two players started shoving each other, prompting both benches and bullpens to enter. No punches were thrown and order was restored in five minutes. Steve O’Sullivan of Bangor and Fischer were both ejected.

Manager Kash Beauchamp credited the confrontation with stoking his team’s competitive fire.

“I think the thing that got us going was that little scrap at first base. We haven’t had anything like that all year,” he said.

Beauchamp noticed another difference in Sunday’s first game.

“Another thing that was nice was having some fans here. It was a great crowd, they got loud, and I felt like we had a home field advantage tonight for one of the few times this season,” Beauchamp said. “This is fun. This is what we’re looking forward to next year.”