Collin Henry could have been forgiven for feeling a little rusty on the mound.

Coming into the start of this summer’s American Legion Zone 1 baseball season, the lefthander from Penobscot hadn’t pitched in more than a month, since starting for the University of Southern Maine in a May 10 Little East Conference tournament game against Keene (N.H.) State.

But inactivity has had little noticeable impact on the 6-foot-3, 185-pound graduate of George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, who has kicked off his final season of Legion play with a pair of dominant relief performances in helping the Trenton Acadians to a 4-0 start.

Henry worked the first three innings of a 19-0 victory over Calais last Thursday, striking out all nine batters he faced. Two days later he earned a win in relief, striking out four batters and allowing just one hit over two innings as Trenton edged Orono 6-4 in eight innings to complete a sweep of their doubleheader.

Fifteen outs, 13 strikeouts. Some rust.

“In terms of pitching, I really couldn’t do much of that at all after the [college] season ended,” said Henry. “In the first couple of games, I don’t think the endurance was there, but I’ll probably get stretched out this week.”

Henry is coming off a productive freshman year as both a pitcher and first baseman at USM. He compiled a 3-3 record with a 3.08 earned run average in a team-leading 52 2/3 innings on the mound to go with a .291 batting average with five home runs, 25 RBIs and a .428 on-base percentage for the Huskies, who finished with a 27-15 record.

“Pitching-wise I had to work on location a lot and on changing speeds more, because you can’t just blow people away with the fastball there,” said Henry. “Hitting wise I had to make some adjustments, because the pitchers’ location is better and the curveballs were a lot sharper. I just tried to get as many fastballs as I could.”

Henry won the Dr. John Winkin Award as the state’s high school Mr. Baseball in 2006 after his senior year at GSA. He went on to become the American Legion Zone I pitcher of the year last summer, compiling a 4-0 record with an 0.58 ERA while helping Trenton advance to the zone tournament and earning All-Zone 1 honors for the third straight year.

But while he has experienced individual success at the Legion level, Henry is focused on helping Trenton achieve a team goal this summer – a trip to the state tournament.

The Acadians will rely heavily on a deep pitching staff that includes Henry, Sam Merrill and Nick Swanson from Mount Desert Island, Collin Ciomei from Class D state champion Deer Isle-Stonington and Josh Astbury and Caleb Hale from George Stevens.

“It’s my fourth year, and it seems like we always finish third and then we get to the [zone] tournament and don’t play our best or lose to Bangor or Brewer, who are always strong,” said Henry. “This year so far it seems like anybody can beat anybody.”

Falcons to host holiday tourney

A year ago, there was barely a day off in the American Legion Zone 1 baseball schedule.

This summer, there’s just enough free time for the Brewer Falcons to host an eight-team Fourth of July tournament this weekend featuring teams from throughout the state and beyond.

“We looked at it as an opportunity to get three or four more games that didn’t count,” said Bucksport High coach Tiger Stewart, who has joined David Morris’ Falcons coaching staff this summer. “It’s an opportunity to get three or four more games of at-bats that don’t count and some innings pitched that don’t count, and those are important.”

Morris and Stewart began sending out feelers seeking teams for the tournament in March.

“We got the first five or six teams real quickly,” said Stewart. “We were a little nervous when we started about whether we might have to go with four teams or six, but we’re glad we got to eight.”

Teams entered include Brewer, Bangor and Orono from Zone 1, Monmouth and Franklin County of Farmington from Zone 2, Cheverus of Portland and Libby-Mitchell Post (Scarborough) from Zone 4 as well as a team from Portsmouth, N.H.

Games will be played at Heddericg Field in Brewer and Mansfield Stadium in Bangor, beginning Friday night when Brewer hosts New Hampshire at 7 p.m. at Heddericg Field. That’s followed by four games Saturday, eight games Sunday and four games on the tournament’s final day, Monday, July 2.

“It’s something we did when I played,” said Stewart, who played for Brewer during the 1990s. “It seemed like it always helped us get our Legion season on the right foot.”

The tournament will include one regular-season Zone 1 game on Saturday night when Brewer faces Orono at Heddericg Field. The teams originally scheduled to play a doubleheader on that date, but by incorporating one of the games into the tournament only one game has to be rescheduled.