FALMOUTH — Jacoby Porter should keep visualizing what he wants to accomplish on the baseball diamond.
In a Class A South semifinal Saturday, Falmouth High’s 6-foot-5 sophomore left-hander pitched the first complete game of his career and went 3 for 3 at the plate with two ringing doubles, an RBI and a run scored as the second-seeded Navigators beat No. 3 Thornton Academy, 4-1.
“Last night, I knew I was going to get the start, so I really tried to visualize getting that first-pitch strike, because I’ve had some command issues and I knew I had to get ahead,” Porter said.
Falmouth had lost in the regional semifinal three straight times, twice to Thornton Academy (12-6), including last season when Falmouth was the top seed.
“When we found out we were playing Thornton again, I got kind of flashbacks to last year and how much that loss hurt, so it was a little extra sweet today to get the win over them,” Porter said.
No. 2 Falmouth (15-3) advances to its first regional final since 2017 and will face No. 1 Scarborough (17-1) on Tuesday at the University of Southern Maine. In the regular season, Scarborough won at Falmouth, 2-1, in a pitchers’ duel between the Red Storm’s Erik Swenson and Falmouth’s Brennan Rumpf.
Swenson will likely be Scarborough’s starter on Tuesday. Rumpf, though, is injured and done for the season. He broke a bone and suffered a deep cut to a finger on his pitching hand in a freak accident while helping to move the team’s pitching machine.
“Brennan Rumpf’s with us. He’s still part of this team. He’s in the dugout and helping in other ways. So he’s still a big part of this team,” said Falmouth Coach Mike D’Andrea. “We’re going to do what we can do. We’re going to compete every pitch, every play, offensively and defensively, and hopefully it works out.”
Porter had great support from his defense.
Falmouth had already turned an inning-ending double play, started by shortstop Josh Polchies, in the first inning to get Porter out of the only jam he would face. Left fielder Ben Robbins tracked down Brennan Tabor’s hard-hit ball to the gap in the third inning. He also made a diving catch to end the sixth.
“As a coach, you can tell what’s happening out there, and they were making play after play after play,” said Thornton Coach Jason Lariviere. “Teams are tough to beat when they’re doing that.”
In what would be a five-pitch fourth inning for Porter, each out deserved a star, especially Nick Wyse’s full-out diving backhand snag to rob Jeremiah Chessie.
“I’ve been playing infield up until this year, so I’m not amazing at reading those off the bat, but on that one, it was just kind of a line drive in the gap and I ended up with the ball in my glove,” Wyse said.
Thornton grabbed a quick 1-0 lead when Chessie grounded an RBI single to left to drive in Tabor, who had walked and advanced to third on a single by Brayden Duane.
Porter did not allow another hit until a ground-rule double by Josh Penney in the seventh inning.
Falmouth threatened against Thornton starter Beck Edgerly in its half of the first. Ethan Hendry (2 for 3, two runs) and Porter singled. With two outs, Thomas Healey hit a ball to deep center that Tabor appeared to have a bead on, but it went over the Thornton freshman’s glove for a two-run triple.
In the fifth inning, Falmouth tacked on two more runs with a two-out rally. Hendry singled, then Porter pulled a liner to right that Colton Cross, another Thornton freshman couldn’t reach despite an aggressive charge, resulting in an RBI double. Porter scored when Simmons followed with another double.
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