Bishop Guertin right fielder can only look up at a ball over the Holman Stadium right field wall off the bat of Bedford's Zach Fletcher for a home run Monday duirng the Bulldogs' 8-2 win. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Scott Painter has seen this show too often lately.

His Bishop Guertin High School baseball team would fall behind early, maybe make a mistake or two, then fail to get the big hit at the right time en route to a tough loss.

That was the case Monday at Holman Stadium when Bedford lefty pitcher Zach Fletcher made it tough for the Cards to recover from an early 3-0 deficit en route to an 8-2 loss to the Bulldogs.

“We walked seven guys, you’re not going to win a lot of games that way,” Painter, the Cards coach said after his team lost its fourth straight to fall to 4-8.

“We let Fletcher off the hook, he had a few walks, too. We let him off the hook.”

Fletcher, whose team is now 7-2 after winning its seventh straight, fanned eight, walked four and hit a batter. He walked two and hit a batter in the third as the Cards, down 3-0, loaded the bases with one out. But they came up empty. And in the top half of that inning Fletcher led off with a home run over the wall in right.

“Zach had a good game today,” Bulldogs coach Billy Chapman said. “I think if you ask him he’d probably tell you he could’ve been a little more efficient. He threw strikes when he needed to, got the outs he needed to, and had a good at-bat today on the home run. We had a lot of good plays today.”

Guertin starter Aiden Meaney got off to a tough start – it could have been worse – giving up two runs in the first on Evan Kaplo’s RBI double and an RBI ground out off the bat of Fletcher. Then he hit the homer in the third. But in that bottom half, Fletcher, with the bases loaded, got old friend Kyle Lavigne – a Bedford kid and arguably BG’s best hitter – to pop to first.

“We attacked him inside on that one,” Chapman said, “which is something you don’t always want to do with him. We kind of let that work against him today. Zach and Kyle have known each other for a long time. You make a mistake with him and he’s going to make you pay. We didn’t and I think that was the key.”

“That’s been our M.O.all year,” Painter said. “We’ve struggled to put together a couple of hits in a row to get us going and keep us going.”

The Cards had runners on in every inning but the fifth. They finally scored two in the seventh off Bedford reliever Ryan Juliano on Kam Thibault’s RBI single and two Bedford throwing errors, but in the top half the Bulldogs posted a five-spot off the BG bullpen thanks to three hits (key two-run double by Ethan Larochelle) and four walks (one intentional).

Guertin made a couple of nice plays in the infield, but a couple of Bulldog extra base hits were fly balls that the Cards appeared to not quite track down.

“We’ve got to catch pop flies,” Painter said. “If they’re going to give you an out, a hard hit fly ball that hangs up there, you’ve got to go get it. They did, they got every fly ball (including a couple of diving catches by Emet Baker and Larochelle in right, both off the bat of Jake Mitchell) . That’s the difference”

Plus the Cards would love to jump out to an early lead rather than play from behind.

“We haven’t done that very often this year,” Painter said. “It’s been an uphill battle. But they’re still fighting, competing.

“We’ll get there. We’re all right.”

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