WISCASSET — Over the first eight games of the Mountain Valley Conference high school baseball season, Wiscasset coach Mike Bowles has watched his team commit untimely errors and fail to take advantage of base runners in scoring position. For the defending Western Maine Class D champions, a 2-6 mark at the halfway point of the season has taken its toll.

Wednesday was no better for the Wolverines, who committed eight errors and left eight runners on base in a 5-3 loss to Mountain Valley.

Wiscasset left its home field with a 2-7 mark, while the Falcons picked up their fifth win to already surpass last year’s four-win campaign, giving Mountain Valley a 5-3 mark with a date with Hall-Dale slated for Friday in Rumford.

“Even with those errors, we had a chance to win the baseball game,” Bowles said. “We are in every game. We haven’t been blown out in any games. But you can’t give a team six, seven or eight extra outs. They are frustrated. We are not a 2-7 team.”

Mountain Valley did enough to get this win. The Falcons scored four runs in the fifth inning against Wiscasset starter Tyler Bailey — the key blow a two-run, two-strike, two-out single by Caleb Gauvin for a 3-1 lead. Two more Wolverine errors upped the visitors advantage to 5-1.

“Tyler Bailey is a good pitcher, the best we have seen all year,” Mountain Valley coach Steve LaPointe said. “We had some good at-bats against him.”

“Tyler pitched a great game, and this will be his only start this week,” Bowles said. “Now we are in a game-by-game mode, and we will take it from there.”

Wiscasset answers

The Wolverines made some noise in the home half of the fifth frame. Facing reliever John Pepin, an innocent dropped foul ball for an error with two outs turned a 1-2-3 frame into a two-run Wiscasset rally. Matt Craig and Daren Wood walked, and Bailey crushed a pitch to the left-center field gap for a two-run double to get the Wolverines to 5-3. Conlon Ranta (2-for-3, stolen base) singled and Brycson Grover walked to load the bases, but Pepin escaped.

LaPointe started righty Tim Fitzgerald, who went the first three innings. The Falcons took advantage of a pair of Wiscasset errors for a 1-0 lead in the second, as Fitzgerald scored when Alex Ridley’s fly ball was misplayed in the outfield.

But, the Wolverines came right back. Wood doubled to open the second and scored on a two-out single by Grover to tie the game.

After Wiscasset drew to 5-3 through five, LaPointe went back to Fitzgerald, who closed it out by retiring six straight Wolverines, including three consecutive strikeouts.

“It’s tough, and you don’t know what you’re coming into,” said Fitzgerald after his two appearances produced five solid innings on three hits, six strikeouts and no walks. “I just tried to do the best I could. I was just trying to get them out the second time around.”

“I had to bring Timmy back in. He is our best. I was thinking about Hall-Dale, but you can’t do that,” LaPointe said. “We are happy with five wins at this point of the season.”

Despite the 2-7 mark, Wiscasset, which rolled through the Western D postseason last year before falling to Bangor Christian in the State Class D title game in Bangor, is still seeded fifth in the Heal Point Standings with seven games remaining.

“We are the number-five seed right now, and I don’t think we are going to fall out of the playoffs,” Bowles said. “We just need to start putting it together.”

Gauvin was 2-for-4 for Mountain Valley, while No. 9 hitter Tucker Rowland was 2-for-3 with a run scored.

Bailey went six innings, tossing 116 pitches with six strikeouts, no walks and six hits allowed. Only two of the five runs he allowed were earned. Tyler Flavin pitched the seventh, working around an error with two punchouts.