Nashua North's Dawson Bolton tags out Mancheser Memorial's Alex Rodriguez trying to steal second during Tuesday's Titans season opener at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Small plays, big results.

Nashua High School North Zach Harris has always had the philosophy that “High School baseball games aren’t won, they’re lost” meaning you force the opposition into mistakes, things will work out.

That’s exactly what happened when a couple of Titan bunts pushed open the door to a nine run fourth inning on the way to a 12-2, six inning (mercy rule) win over Manchester Memorial in the season opener at Holman Stadium.

Down 1-0, North took advantage of an error on Memorial shortstop Alex Rodriguez, plus indecision on Crusaders starting pitcher Dylan Cortes on two bunts by Ben Kelly and Jayden Beaulieu loaded the bases and the Titans got RBI hits by Brayden Ouellett (game-tying single), Andrew Butler (go-ahead two-run single) and Dawson Bolton’s booming two-run double to start the rout. Fourteen Titans came to the plate.

“It’s the team that takes advantage of the mistakes the other team makes,” Harris said. “And credit to (Memorial), they put it together there for awhile where they made it really tough on us. And I thought our kids did a really nice job making adjustments at the plate … Good job for our guys making adjustments and having a big inning.”

This is what North typically does under Harris, putting the ball in play and hoping the other team will unravel. He said they practice bunting every day.

“Some teams will play catch before practice,” he said. “What we do before we play catch is we bunt. … It’s a part of what I like to do. I like to make the game happen. High school kids make mistakes. When you put balls in play, good things will happen.”

“It’s certainly tough,” Memorial coach Nick Provencher said of combating small ball. “It’s something we work on and it’s something we’ve got to be able to execute, right. So we work on that in the preseason for a reason, so when we come out early in the season we can execute it. And we failed to do that on two straight bunts and it turns into a snowball of an inning.”

North’s Owen Forcier got the Opening Day nod out of respect for what he’s done the last couple of years, even though he’s been working through some injuries. He wasn’t going to go too deep, so Harris took him out in the third after Memorial’s Matt Poitras hit a booming double to left that gave the Crusaders a 1-0 lead. Enter Brayden Ouellette, who gave up an unearned run in the fifth and overall shut Memorial down.

Nashua North’s Owen Forcier delivers a pitch early in Tuesday’s season opener vs. Manchester Memorial at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

“I’ve got to just trust my defense back there,” Ouellette said. “One out, I had to go off starting pitcher Owen, his momentum.”

“Brayden did an outstanding job,” Harris said. “It’s his first time out here on a varsity baseball field, on the mound, and I thought he did a phenomenal job.”

North plated four more runs in the fourth, got the lead to 11-2 when in the sixth Nolan Sullivan drew a bases loaded walk that made it 12-2 and ended things thanks to the 10-run rule.

It certainly was a great way to start for North, but the Titans know it’s a long season with a lot of work to do.

“Everyone’s counting us out right now,” Ouellett said. “You look at all the rankings, we’re nowhere near the top team. We’re a gritty team. We’ve just got to keep playing, getting base hits, keep moving along everyone, and making sure we’re doing the little things right.”

Because, as both teams discovered, those little things can turn into big things.