NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The SteepleCats Sunday started their 2026 season the way they ended their 2025 campaign: with a narrow loss to the Sanford Mainers.

 

Sanford, which won a best-of-three playoff series against North Adams last August, scored four runs on 14 hits to earn a 4-2 win at Joe Wolfe Field.

 

The Mainers broke a 1-1 tie with a two-run rally in the third inning, and four Sanford pitchers combined to collect 11 strikeouts as the visitors improved to 2-1 this summer.

 

North Adams, which saw its planned road opener rained out on Saturday, got to open the season in front of its home fans.

 

And those fans saw a strong performance from the North Adams pitching staff, which, despite allowing 14 hits, including five doubles, gave up just three earned runs.

 

“I like the grit,” SteepleCats coach Mike Gladu said of his team’s Game 1 performance. “I thought the pitchers performed pretty well. We had a couple of situations where we definitely should have gotten some runs in and didn’t get that hit.

 

“And there were a couple of plays with a little rust. Certainly, the ball that was hit over [Evan] Meier’s in left field, he just mistracked that one. And the extra run they scored in the eighth, the kid wasn’t going to go [from third on a fly ball], we made a throw and nobody could stop it.

 

“Overall, I thought we played well. We just needed a couple more hits. We just didn’t get them.”

 

Starter Garret Gates was tagged with the loss after allowing two earned runs in three innings. Four more North Adams pitchers followed, combining for eight strikeouts and three walks among the four of them.

 

They also combined to strand nine runners – at least one in seven of the nine innings.

 

“That’s what it takes to win, but we need some hits on the other end of that,” Gladu said. “I didn’t see a ton of walks tonight, so that’s good stuff. We’ve just got to figure out how to get the hits when we need them for sure.”

 

North Adams’ runs came in the second and sixth innings.

 

In the second, Matthew Colella led off with a single up the middle and scored when Owen Arias singled to right and ended up standing on third base after a throwing error.

 

Another error factored into the SteepleCats’ second run. Sean Stephenson hit a one-out double and scored one play later when Colella grounded to the right side and reached on a throwing error.

 

Stephenson’s double was North Adams’ last hit of the night. Three Sanford pitchers combined to 11 of 12 batters down the stretch with just a hit batter breaking up that run.

 

Four of those outs were among the 11 K’s notched by the Mainers’ pitchers.

 

“A couple of them were kind of jumping out of their shoes a little bit,” Gladu said of his hitters. “I think they’ve got to get settled and get used to the wood bat in their hands. I think a couple of guys tried to do too much in their at-bats. A lot of times when you do that in this game, good things don’t happen.”

 

North Adams (0-1) is on the road Monday at Vermont.

 

Photos from this game here.