BANGOR – Presque Isle and John Bapst met at the Winkin Sports Complex on Saturday, both hoping to secure some Heal Points and a dose of momentum entering the home stretch of the high school baseball regular season.

Both teams left moderately satisfied after splitting their doubleheader, with John Bapst winning the opener 10-0 in six innings and Presque Isle rebounding for a 3-1 victory in the second game.

The split leaves both teams figuring prominently in the Class B playoff race, with Presque Isle now 11-2 and John Bapst at 7-4.

“There were two options today,” said Presque Isle coach Tim Olore. “A sweep would have been beautiful, but we’ll take this option because they’re worth a lot of points, and we need points. We’ll take this option, because we didn’t want to come down here and go 0-2.”

Lefthanded pitching was the dominant factor in the split, as John Bapst’s Mike Tardiff pitched a four-hit shutout in the opener and Presque Isle’s Chad Lavway allowed just three hits in the second game.

Tardiff went the control route, striking out four while walking no one and hitting a batter in an 89-pitch effort.

“When I first started pitching in high school, I thought I could just throw it by anybody,” Tardiff said, “but now I’ve learned that as a lefthander you have an advantage and you just have to hit your spots, and that’s what I did today.”

Tardiff had pitched in tough luck this season – he entered Saturday’s game with a 1-2 record despite a 0.83 earned run average – but his mates broke the game open with three runs in the fifth inning and ended it with six runs in the bottom of the sixth.

Presque Isle righthander Danny Michaud set down the first nine batters he faced, but the second time around the John Bapst batting order was more problematic.

Freshman Kyle Gallant tripled to lead off the Crusaders’ fourth and scored on a Brian Roach groundout. A two-run triple by Roach and a sacrifice fly by Sean Snyder produced John Bapst’s fifth-inning runs before the Crusaders sent 10 batters to the plate in the sixth against Michaud and reliever Spencer King.

Hunter Umphrey’s two-run double and an RBI single by Nick Hubbard sparked the rally, and a subsequent bases-loaded single by George Keefe drove home Gallant with the run that ended the game under the 10-run rule.

Hubbard finished with two hits for the Crusaders, while Gallant reached base three times and scored three runs.

“His bat’s been a little sluggish, but it’s all about on-base percentage with him,” said John Bapst coach Shane Graham. “He gets on however he can, whether it’s taking walks or hitting. He’s starting to put hits together lately, so he’s a good guy to have at the top of the lineup.”

Lavway escaped a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the first inning of the second game with back-to-back strikeouts, then used a sharp-breaking curveball to baffle the Bapst batters.

“It definitely wasn’t one of my better games,” said Lavway, who had 13 strikeouts and five walks. “The first inning’s always like that for me, but I just dig deep and try to stay within myself.”

John Bapst got a solid pitching effort from Roach, a lefthander who allowed only one earned run, but Presque Isle staked Lavway to a 3-0 lead before he ever took the mound, scoring all of its runs in the top of the first.

Tim Lyford, who had four hits in the doubleheader, had a one-out single for the Wildcats, and Derreck Belanger reached on an error. Tim Morrison singled home Lyford, and Matt McGlinn laid down a suicide squeeze that scored Belanger.

Michaud made it 3-0 with a slow-rolling RBI single up the middle.

John Bapst’s only run came in the fourth. Alex Yates singled and Umphrey walked before a sacrifice by Hubbard advanced both runners with one out. Snyder grounded out to Morrison at first base, but on the play Umphrey became caught in a rundown between second and third. Morrison initiated a rundown, but Yates scored before Umphrey was tagged out.

CRUSADERS 10, WILDCATS 0

(First Game)

Presque Isle (10-2) John Bapst (7-3)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Lavway, cf 3 0 0 0 Gallant, 2b 2 3 0

Lyford, 2b 3 0 2 0 Roach, lf 3 0 3

Belanger, c 3 0 1 0 Andrews, 1b 3 0 1

Morrison, 1b 2 0 1 0 Keefe, ss 3 1 1

Ireland, pr 0 0 0 0 Tardiff, p 3 1 0

McGlinn, lf 1 0 0 0 Yates, c 2 2 0

Michaud, p-rf 2 0 0 0 Umphrey, dh 2 2

Cole, dh 2 0 0 0 Clark, rf 0 0 0

Mathers, 3b 0 0 0 0 Hubbard, 3b 3 2 1

King, ss-p 2 0 0 0 Snyder, cf 2 0 1

York, rf-ss 2 0 0 0

Totals 20 0 4 0 Totals 23 10 8 9

Presque Isle 000 000 – 0

John Bapst 000 136 – 10

E-Mathers; LOB-PI 4, JB 5; 2B-Umphrey; 3B-Belanger; Gallant, Roach; S-McGlinn; Umphrey; SF-Snyder

Presque Isle IP H R ER BB SO

Michaud (L, 4-2) 5 6 8 7 3 5

King 1/3 2 2 2 3 0

John Bapst IP H R ER BB SO

Tardiff (W, 2-2) 6 4 0 0 0 4

Michaud pitched to four batters in 6th

One out in 6th when clinching run scored

HBP-Morrison (by Tardiff); WP-King 2; T-1:35

WILDCATS 3, CRUSADERS 1

(Second Game)

Presque Isle (11-2) John Bapst (7-4)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Lavway, p 4 0 1 0 Gallant, 2b 4 0 0

Lyford, 2b 3 1 2 0 Roach, p 2 0 0

Belanger, c 4 1 0 0 Keefe, ss 3 0 0

Morrison, 1b 3 1 2 1 Andrews, 1b 2 0 0

Ireland, pr 0 0 0 0 Tardiff, lf 3 0 0

Cole, 1b 1 0 0 0 Levesque, pr 0 0 0

McGlinn, lf 3 0 1 1 Yates, c 3 1 0

Michaud, rf 4 0 1 1 Umphrey, dh 1 0 0

King, ss 4 0 0 0 Clark, rf 0 0 0

Mathers, 3b 2 0 0 0 Hubbard, 3b 2 0 0

York, cf 2 0 0 0 Snyder, cf 2 0 0

Jameson, ph 1 0 0 0

Totals 30 3 7 3 Totals 23 1 3 0

Presque Isle 300 000 0 – 3

John Bapst 000 001 0 – 1

E-Belanger, Mathers; Keefe, Tardiff, Hubbard; LOB-PI 10, JB 6; S-McGlinn; Hubbard

Presque Isle IP H R ER BB SO

Lavway (W, 4-0) 7 3 1 1 5 13

John Bapst IP H R ER BB SO

Roach (L, 3-1) 7 7 3 1 3 4

WP-Lavway 2; Roach 1; PB-Belanger; T-1:55; ATT-80