AUGUSTA — Skowhegan Post 16 coach Roger Stinson vowed his team’s bats would make plenty of noise after being virtually silenced in Wednesday’s state American Legion tournament loss to South Portland.

On Thursday, Skowhegan backed up the coach’s promise, and then some.

Skowhegan jumped out to an early 3-0 lead before putting up 11 runs in the third inning en route to a 14-2 victory in seven innings over Fayette-Staples of Saco in an elimination game at McGuire Field.

“That’s a lot more like it,” Stinson said after his team pounded out 13 hits. “Everybody was swinging the bats. It worked out from the beginning.”

Skowhegan (17-11) will face Pastime Club of Lewiston in another elimination game at 10 a.m. on Friday.

Ryan Emery led the outburst by going 3-for-5 with two RBIs and three runs scored. Evan Bess and Will Stinson each drove in and scored a pair of runs. Chase Malloy and Cody Laweryson chipped in two hits apiece.

Everyone in the starting lineup got at least one hit.

“We had a really rough game yesterday. None of us were hitting,” Emery said. “I think today we came more prepared and more ready to play.”

The offensive explosion allowed Stinson to pull his ace, Laweryson, off the mound after just two innings and 23 pitches so he could toe the rubber again on Friday.

“I believe that’s going to be our intent,” Stinson said. “I’m going to talk with our coaches tonight. If we needed to go back to him (Thursday), we could. But we’ve got the luxury of a lot of guys on my bench that can go to the mound.”

Skowhegan’s first seven batters reached base against Fayette-Staples southpaw starter Zachary Ham and three runs scored on an error and RBI singles by Emery and Laweryson. They might have done more damage if not for having one runner picked off at first and another thrown out at third.

“It was very important (to set the tone early) after coming out flat yesterday,” Stinson said. “The boys knew that this was do-or-die.”

“Usually, our game is playing small-ball. We get guys at first and second and nobody out, it’s almost a no-brainer that we’re going to bunt,” Laweryson said. “But we had everybody hitting today, so we let our guys swing the bat.”

Ham retired the side in order in the second but Skowhegan started swinging again in the third, sending 15 men to the plate while touching Ham and relievers Brogan Searle-Belanger and Evan Balzano for 11 runs on seven hits — all singles — and three walks, along with three Fayette-Staples errors.

“We just got so far behind, we just couldn’t catch up to it (Skowhegan’s momentum),” Fayette-Staples assistant coach James Searle-Belanger said.

Emery, who had two hits and scored twice in the frame, got the rally started with a leadoff single. Two-run singles by Stinson and Bess and RBI singles from Emery, Malloy and Mike Berry kept the inning going.

“We wanted to bat around,” Emery said. “We were ready to go.”

“The biggest thing that they did different today is be aggressive at the plate,” Stinson said.

Laweryson combined with Malloy, Stinson, Bess and Emery to limit Fayette-Staples to four hits. After a 42-minute rain delay at the start of the sixth inning, RBI singles by Eric Clum-Russell and Brady Lambert accounted for both Fayette-Staples runs. Laweryson robbed Ham of a double that would have put two more runs on the board with a diving, backhanded catch in center field.

“I’ve always liked playing outfield, so, just having fun out there,” he said.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33