HAMPDEN – Hampden Academy baseball coach Marc Halsted charts his hitters’ batting average in “quality at-bats” against “teams with winning records and good pitchers.”

He said junior catcher Kevin Brooks was hitting “over .350” in quality at-bats.

Brooks delivered a run-scoring double to break up a no-hitter in the fourth and added a game-winning RBI single in the sixth to lead the Broncos to a come-from-behind 3-2 win over Lawrence High of Fairfield in their Eastern Maine Class A preliminary game at Bordick Park Tuesday.

Both hits came with two outs.

Eighth seed Hampden Academy, now 12-5, will visit top seed Mount Ararat of Topsham, 15-1, in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

Ninth seed Lawrence, winner of eight of its previous nine, finished at 9-8.

Lawrence senior righthander Ryan Ackley took a 2-1 lead into the sixth but was victimized by a two-out error that led to two unearned runs.

Hampden’s Pat Moran poked a one-out single into center and, one out later, pinch-runner Dan Lawson was off on the pitch and scored when Lawrence third baseman Garrett Parker bobbled Chris Pease’s grounder and threw low past first.

Pease continued to second.

Pinch-runner John Higgins came on and scored when Brooks ripped a 1-2 pitch to left for his single.

“I’m a pretty good curveball hitter and that’s what I was looking for. I recognized it when he released it and I turned on it,” said Brooks.

Halsted had told his righthanded hitters to move up a foot in the box and six inches closer to the plate “to take away the outside corner. That’s when everything changed.

“That made it a lot easier to turn on the ball,” said Brooks.

Ackley and Hampden junior righty Pease were superb.

Ackley, who said his curve was his best pitch, pitched a three-hitter with nine strikeouts and no walks. He threw 59 strikes among his 83 pitches.

“He changed it up on us and kept us off-balance most of the game,” said Brooks.

Pease allowed two hits with five strikeouts and four walks. He retired the last 13 hitters he faced and struck out the final four.

“I started to settle down as the game went along. I just tried to get ahead of the hitters. My fastball was working,” said Pease, who threw 96 pitches including 62 strikes.

“He hit his spots when he had to,” said Ackley.

Three walks surrounding a Chad Smith single gave Lawrence a 1-0 lead in the second.

Ackley walked in the third, stole second and scored on Craig Nadeau’s bloop single.

Brooks’ fly-ball double to left center in the fourth scored Pease, who had been hit by a pitch.

BRONCOS 3, BULLDOGS 2

Lawrence (9-8) Hampden (12-5)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Holmes, ss 4 0 0 0 Shannon, 2b 3 0 0

Lee, 2b 3 0 0 0 Meehan, ss 3 0 0

Flynn, cf 3 0 0 0 Moran, 1b 3 0 0

Ackley, p 2 1 0 0 Lawson, pr 0 1 0

Parker, 3b 2 1 0 0 Lee, 3b 3 0 0 0

Nadeau, 1b 2 0 1 1 Pease, p 1 1 0

Johnson, dh 2 0 0 0 Higgins, pr 0 1 0

Germain, rf 0 0 0 0 Brooks, c 3 0 2

Smith, lf 3 0 1 0 Brown, cf 2 0 0

Perry, c 1 0 0 1 Huntley, dh 2 0 0

Gilman, ph 1 0 0 0 MacLean, rf 0 0 0

Sugesawa, lf 2 0 0 0

Totals 23 2 2 2 Totals 22 3 3 2

Lawrence 011 000 0 ? 2

Hampden 000 102 x ? 3

E? Holmes, Lee Parker; Meehan; LOB? Lawrence 5, Hampden 3; 2B? Brooks; SB? Ackley

Lawrence IP H R ER BB SO

Ackley (L, 4-5) 6 3 3 1 0 9

Hampden IP H R ER BB SO

Pease (W, 5-1) 7 2 2 2 4 5

HBP? Pease by Ackley; PB? Brooks; T? 1:20; ATT? 100 (est.)