It was Keene’s second doubleheader of the season at Alumni and Zach Messinger’s struggles continued as Keene dropped to 17-12.

Sanford, who surrendered two leads to Keene at Goodall Park and at Alumni nearly a week ago, finally held on and took down the Swampbats 8-3 in a seven-inning shortened game due to the NECBL doubleheader rule. 

It’s a tough loss for Keene, especially because Messinger, who is one of the more consistent starters for the men in purple, has struggled in his past two starts.

Messinger, in his two most recent, has given up 14 runs, all of them earned. His ERA has spiked considerably, and Keene will need him to figure things out quickly, especially with a possible playoff run on the horizon.

The 6-6 righty from the University of Virginia started the first inning strong retiring three in a row but was haunted by the long ball in the second and third.

Starting with a Nick Howie single into right, Erik Stock then launched a 3-2 outside fastball from Messinger into deep right center, putting Sanford up early 2-0.

This pitch hurt Messinger several times during the day as the right-hander tried to locate the fastball on the outside part of the plate, but kept tailing inside.

This was made evident when Reese Armitage, three batters later, launched the same pitch, this time on a 2-2 count, into deep right field, scoring Orlando Adams and making it 4-0 Mainers.   

Sanford starter Brandon Backman, who went 5 and 2/3 innings pitched, gave up a single to Logan Mathieu and after walking Kyle Ball and another single from David Matthews, had bases loaded and no outs.

Following a Ryan Hogan pop out to center, Andrew MacNeil, still on fire, ripped a single just past the glove of first basemen Connor Tate, scoring Mathieu and Ball and cutting Keene’s deficit in half.

Backman, frustrated, then struck out Kevin Welsh and Randall Bednar to end the rally.

Welsh and Bednar, the one and two batters in Keene’s order, struggled at the plate, combining for a 1 for 8 slash line with five strikeouts.

Going to the third, Sanford made it clear Keene was not coming back as Shane Marshall tied the team lead in dingers with his fifth into deep right field, hitting off of the barn. Scoring Drew DeMartino from first, Sanford went up 6-2.

David Bedgood then retaliated with his 12th and still NECBL leading homer into right field, making it 6-3 Sanford.

Messinger, who had given up all six runs via homer, went 1 and 1/3 innings of no run ball before giving up an RBI double to Erik Stock down the left field line in the top of the fifth. With the ball taking a strange bounce, Kyle Ball misread the play and the ball rolled into left field, scoring Shane Marshall from third.

Keene could have cut their 7-3 deficit in the following half inning with first and third and no outs.

However, David Bedgood popped out to short and following a Logan Mathieu lineout to second, Kyle Ball popped out to center.

Johnathan Edwards relieved Messinger for the final two innings of the game and was flawless through one until Drew DeMartino took an outside fastball deep to right center, putting him back in the team lead for homers at six and extending the Mainers lead to five.

With Keene down 8-3, reliever Connor Peplow snatched the final three outs in the bottom of the seventh to give Sanford their 11th win of the season. Blowing two leads against Keene in their past two battles, Sanford finally beats Keene for the first time this season.

Similar to the Winnipesaukee doubleheader five days ago, Keene will look to take down Sanford in game 2 to split the day and maintain second place in the Northern Division.