PEMBROKE – The Pembroke Academy baseball team looked flat for the first 2½ innings on Wednesday afternoon. Trailing 3-0, the pitching scuffled and the offense didn’t inspire much confidence, either.

But a bases-clearing triple from junior left fielder Sean Bonisteel put Pembroke ahead, 4-3, a lead the Spartans never relinquished in their 5-3 victory over Merrimack Valley.

Here are three keys from the Spartans’ comeback win:

Sophomore Owen Stewart settled things down on the mound: Pembroke starting pitcher Cam Plumb struggled with command and didn’t receive much help from his defense.

In 2⅓ innings, he allowed three runs (all unearned) on three hits and walked four. His wildness in the second inning allowed MV (0-1) to put up a three-spot and jump out to the early lead.

Stewart, in relief, tossed 4⅔ innings, allowed four hits, no runs, two walks and struck out four. The biggest key though? He threw 42 of his 65 pitches for strikes (65%) compared to Plumb, who threw just 23 of his 52 in the zone (44%).

“I thought he did a great job mixing his pitches,” Spartans head coach Josh Coughlin said of Stewart’s performance. “He stayed on the plate. He kept those guys guessing, and he changed the complexity of the game for sure.”

Coughlin has entered the season with what he calls a “pitcher-by-committee” setup on his roster. No one has earned defined roles quite yet. Except, perhaps now, Stewart.

“Owen’s thrown both games this week. He threw a couple quick innings there on Monday in relief that got him that situation today,” Coughlin said. “He earned those innings, and that’s what we talked about. It’s pitcher-by-committee until you earn it and you establish it. He’s clearly establishing that he’s going to be a pitcher on this team early on, and we need to continue that.”

MV’s inability to capitalize with runners in scoring position was likely the difference: The Pride’s loss wasn’t due to a lack of opportunities.

MV left 13 runners on base, including in the first inning when Plumb walked two batters, in the third when MV stranded runners at second and third and in the fifth when the Pride left runners at first and third. MV had at least one runner in scoring position in every inning but only scored three runs.

“Obviously not the result we wanted to start the season off,” said MV head coach Sean Wheeler. “Most frustrating was just having 13 runners on base and not getting that big hit. There’s the bottom line.”

MV’s most crushing wasted opportunity came in the sixth inning when senior Dylan Garvin was hit in the helmet and junior Luke Dougherty reached on an error, setting up first and second with nobody out.

In succession, Alex McPherson bunted a ball to the third-base side of the mound, allowing Stewart to field and throw to third for the force, Landon Abbott flied out to right field and Will McPherson grounded a ball weakly back to the mound, quelling the threat.

“Seems like we were on base all day; we just gotta get that one big hit,” Wheeler said. “We’ll find the right lineup.”

Pembroke overcame its shaky defense: Usually a game where your pitchers issue six walks and the defense commits three errors doesn’t lead to a win, but Pembroke (1-1) defied those odds on Wednesday. Even still, the win doesn’t overshadow the improvement Coughlin still hopes to see from his group as the season progresses.

“Team-wise, we have a lot of stuff to learn, a lot of the small stuff to clean up,” he said.

“We gotta make more plays. Defensively, we gotta support our pitchers a heck of a lot better if we’re going to progress throughout this season.”

After losing their season opener to Souhegan, 12-1, just two days earlier, Coughlin and the Spartans will surely take the win, especially against an MV team with high expectations this season.

“We’ve got a lot to clean up,” Coughlin said, “but at the end of the day, we got down early, and our guys showed a lot of grit getting back into that game and coming away with a W.”

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