After reaching the league finals, the Truro Bearcats and Dartmouth Moosehead Dry got things going on Thursday night despite a rainy day washing out games all across the region.
Rain or shine, it likely wouldn’t have made a difference. The Dry came to win.
By the end of the seventh inning, Dartmouth had a 12-2 lead and the game was called for the 10-run rule.
Jeff Reeves picked up the win, throwing all seven innings, while Guy Pellerine took the loss for Truro in three innings of work.
The Dry got out to an early start with a run in the first inning. Truro answered with one of their own in the top of the second, before Dartmouth retook the lead in the bottom half. In the third, Anthony McKinley tagged a three-run homer to give Dartmouth a 5-1 lead.
With a 6-2 lead in the fifth, the offensive exploded for five runs to make it 11-2. They’d tack on one more in the seventh to make it a walk-off mercy rule win.
McKinley also had a double, while Chris Head tagged three singles and two RBI. Greg West and Billy Hartley also drove in pairs of runs, with Matthew Doudelet adding one.
The Bearcats managed just two hits, both of them coming off the bats of the Bates brothers – Ryan and Dan.
The 17-time Nova Scotia Senior Baseball League champs will head to Truro on Sunday to take on the Bearcats for Game 2 of the league finals. Play gets underway at TAAC Grounds at 2 p.m.
