Umpires talk with Nashua North coach Zach Harris and Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras after a sink hole that was expanding was discovered just beyond the infield Tuesday at Holman Stadium. That plus the rain caused the game to be suspended with North up 13-5 in the fourth inning, to be made up at a later date. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Only Mother Nature could slow down the progress of the Nashua High School North baseball team.

The Titans were possibly on their way to a fifth straight win on Tuesday, leading Merrimack 13-5 with the bottom of the fourth coming up before two things at Holman Stadium happened.

First, a potentially dangerous sink hole was discovered just beyond the infield in very shallow left center field. And two, the rain that was a misty drizzle for about an inning was becoming more steady, and those two things combined to cause the game to be suspended. It will be resumed at a date and time yet to be determined. Ironically, the contest was started 90 minutes early to try to avoid such a fate.

But it didn’t hide the fact the Titans, who next host Alvirne at Holman on Friday, are a different team than the one that began the season 0-2.

“After the first two games we actually had a team meeting,” North coach Zach Harris said. “We gave the guys off practice and had a meeting in a classroom after school.

“I asked these guys what they wanted their team to be, what they wanted the season to be like. So this is all them. They decided what they wanted this team to be like, they’re setting the culture, and we’re just living by it day by day, trying to play decent baseball.”

That’s what Merrimack coach Mike Dudash had hoped to see from his team yesterday, especially after taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the first thanks to a couple of walks, a throwing error and a base hit by Aidan Ponder.

But the ‘Hawks, 2-5 coming in, weren’t sharp defensively at all, committing four costly errors as the Titans pounded out 11 hits and sent a combined 21 to the plate in the second and third innings, as starter Dylan Brander lasted just two frames.

“It felt like Dylan Brander pitched a good enough game but our defense was just not there today,” Dudash said. “Our pitching’s been weak, we’ve been walking a lot of players. But for some reason today our gloves were just not there.

“But you’ve got to give credit to North. They did hit the ball.”

Indeed, the Titans were in attack mode. Ryan Bourgeois had two hits, reached base all three times and had five RBIs. They got RBI hits in the second by starting pitcher Andy Barry (three innings), Bourgeois, and Colin Holbrook. Holbrook has been back the last few games, receiving full medical clearance after a medical episode in the season opener led to him being taken to the hospital and the game vs. Portsmouth called an 11-2 Clippers win in the fifth.

“That’s them,” Harris said of the attack mentality. “That’s been their mindset, that’s been their mindset. They want to come out and play hard every time for seven innings. That’s been their goal, and through four-and-half games they’ve done that so far.”

Things were getting slippery with the drizzle, and the ‘Hawks were, as Dudash said, “chipping away” with a couple of runs in the third (a Ponder RBI double) and a run in the fourth on Eliot Medlock’s RBI single.

But with two out and runners on second and third, North shortstop Derek Finlay made an incredible diving catch in shallow left that saved two runs. It ended the middle of the fourth and not only was it the play of the day, it was the last play of the day.

“He made a great catch,” Dudash said. “That could’ve been two runs and we could’ve cut this thing in half.

“We’ve played the good teams pretty well but we’ve always had that one bad inning.”

Harris knows his team isn’t considered part of the upper echelon in Division I, , but he and his players aren’t letting that stop them from their tourney goal.

“After the top four or five teams it’s really wide open for who wants to get in,” he said. “Everybody’s kind of the same once you get past that fifth team..”

Heck, try getting past the Titans these days. It’s not easy at all.

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