Gorham baseball gets 2nd chance, beats Falmouth in A South quarterfinals

 Cooper Whitehead scores to give Gorham the lead in their 3-0 win over Falmouth in a Class A South quarterfinal on Friday in Old Orchard Beach.(Steve Craig/Staff Writer) [ **Our Communities. Our Teams. Our Future. **We’re proud to make high school sports coverage free for everyone, because these moments matter. At Maine State Credit Union, we’re here for the people and places that make Maine strong. Let’s go! Learn more at **[mainestatecu.org](http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=7274124606&iu=/6119)**.  OLD ORCHARD BEACH — There was no avoiding the backstory to Friday’s Class A South quarterfinal baseball game at The Ballpark. The only reason it was being played was on Friday was a thunderstorm and downpour on Thursday caused the game to be postponed with No. 8 Falmouth leading top-seed Gorham 6-0 with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning. But, by MPA rules, all those runs, all those outs Falmouth had accumulated didn’t count. The game would be restarted from the beginning. Gorham senior pitcher Miles Brenner said he and his teammates knew they had been granted a reprieve. But they still had to take advantage of it. And ace pitcher Hunter Finck and Wyatt Washburn had both thrown too many pitches Thursday to be available. “Coach, at the beginning of the game, said we’re going to have to ride you out,” Brenner said. Brenner made sure that Friday would be different at The Ballpark, where the game was played because Gorham’s field still had puddles on the infield. Brenner struck out the side in the first inning, and the Rams scratched out two runs in the bottom half after Cooper Whitehead and Washburn opened the frame with singles, and the Rams rode Brenner’s complete-game five-hitter to a 3-0 victory. Working quickly, Brenner was sharp, spotting his lively fastball and breaking balls. When Falmouth batters began to slow his pace by asking for time or stepping out of the box after a pitch, Brenner was unfazed. Advertisement “Yesterday, when that game got washed out and we knew we were going to come back and play today and you’re getting the ball, it’s going to Miles, no question about it,” said Gorham coach Ed Smith. No. 1 Gorham (16-1) will host No. 4 Thornton Academy (13-5) at 5 p.m. Saturday in the regional semifinals. FALMOUTH’S TOUGH ENDING No. 8 Falmouth finishes with an 11-7 record. The Navigators hung in the game behind senior left-handed pitcher Jacoby Porter, who battled back after the first inning and again after twisting his ankle while warming up to start the third inning. Noticeably hobbled, Porter — who is headed to the University of Chicago to play baseball — got stronger in the middle frames, striking out the side in the fourth. “I had to kind of battle it, but it wasn’t enough to keep me off this field,” Porter said. Porter was relieved after giving up a walk and single to put runners on the corners with one out in the sixth. Preston Brown greeted reliever Charlie Engle with a single to center to score Gorham’s final run. Porter said the Thursday postponement was “gut-wrenching and it really hurt. We gave ourselves 20 minutes or so to let it hurt, and then we knew we had to get back to work. There was nothing we could do about it. Rules are rules. Now we just have to compete.” Advertisement Falmouth coach Mike D’Andrea reminded his team that every game in the playoffs is win-or-go-home situation, regardless of how he or they felt about the restart rule. “So I said, ‘Let’s not think of this as a bad luck from yesterday. Let’s think that we have to win again. You have to win game two and three and four,'” D’Andrea said. “That’s how we tried to approach it today, and to be honest, Miles Brenner was the difference today. He came out and threw really, really well and had command, and there was a big zone back there and he exploited it.” STATISTICAL NOTES No player had more than one hit. Porter finished with seven strikeouts against three hits, two walks and a hit batter. He held Finck hitless in three at-bats. Finck, the Class A South Most Valuable Player, led the league with a .539 batting average. … Brenner struck out five and walked one in his five-hitter. He also had an RBI on a first-inning grounder when Finck, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, slid around a tag attempt at home. Copy the Story Link Tagged: [falmouth navigators](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/falmouth-navigators/), [gorham rams](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/gorham-rams/) [](https://www.pressherald.com/author/steve-craig) [Steve CraigStaff Writer](https://www.pressherald.com/author/steve-craig) Steve Craig reports primarily about Maine’s active high school sports scene and, more recently, the Portland Hearts of Pine men's professional soccer team. His first newspaper job was covering Maine. [More by Steve Craig](https://www.pressherald.com/author/steve-craig)