CHATHAM, Mass. — Falmouth had flipped the game on its head. Down 4-2 to the Chatham Anglers, the Commodores rallied to tie the game 4-4 in the fourth.

Maika Niu (Arkansas), who entered with a league-leading six homers, broke the game open with another. He drilled a three-run shot to right center, giving the Commodores a secure 7-4 advantage.

Or so they thought. Chatham came storming back. After the Anglers pushed across a run in the fourth, Ashton Larson emerged as the hero. He demolished a no-doubt grand slam to right, giving Chatham a 10-7 lead.

“That’s a big momentum change. Anytime you get up 7-4, we've got to put up a zero,” Falmouth manager Jarrod Saltalamacchia said. “We allowed them to get into a count where he was sitting on a heater, and he did what he's supposed to.”

Though it was just the fifth, Larson’s blast doomed Falmouth (9-9-1) Sunday. The Anglers (8-8-3) took the lead and ran, defeating the Commodores 11-8. No Falmouth pitcher seemed to have their stuff on Sunday, as five pitchers combined to allow 13 hits and 11 runs, pushing the ‘Dores back to .500 on the season.

Last time Falmouth was at Veterans Field, neither team did much offensively. In the two’s season-opener, the adjustment to wooden bats and no batter’s eye was tough. Falmouth scored the only run of the game on a Justin Osterhouse broken-bat single, leading to its 1-0 win.

But the ‘Dores entered Sunday off one of their most complete performances of the year. Eleven runs, fifteen hits and a comfortable 11-4 victory over Wareham.

Still, Falmouth took a step back on Sunday. After notching its fourth win in six games with its seven-run victory over the Gatemen, the ‘Dores couldn’t prevail again.

Their offense certainly wasn’t the problem. The Commodores jumped on Chatham’s Kaden Smith instantly, capitalizing on his early location issues for five first-inning baserunners and two runs. They loaded the bases with one out on Antonio Morales and Adrian Lopez singles and a Niu walk. Kent Schmidt then worked a walk and Mark Quatrani was hit by a pitch, making it 2-0.

West Virginia’s Mac Stiffler was tasked with holding the lead. Making his Commodores debut Sunday, he couldn’t do that. Across 1 ⅓ innings, he allowed three runs on three hits.

Stiffler transferred all the momentum to Chatham. Ethan Mendoza notched his 13th RBI by lining a single down the left-field line in the second, plating Gavin Gallaher from second to halve Falmouth’s lead. The next inning, Daniel Jackson doubled, then Chase Fralick knotted the game at two with a sac fly to left.

Jakub Schulz (Vanderbilt) came in to limit the damage. He instead made it worse. After loading the bases, Chatham added two more runs. Henry Ford drilled a sac fly into deep right center, then Isaiah Lane scampered home on a wild pitch, giving the Anglers their first lead of the game, 4-2.

Last time Chatham and Falmouth played, the ‘Dores responded every time Chatham scored. That led to a 9-7 Commodores win. They did that initially.

Falmouth’s surge began in the third. With runners on the corners, Osterhouse (Alabama) notched his fourth RBI in two games by drilling a sac fly to center.

The next time up, the ‘Dores produced their fourth-inning rally. After Carl Schmidt (California) deadlocked the game with an RBI single off JJ Glasscock, Niu produced his league-leading seventh dinger. Saltalamacchia said Glasscock was tipping pitches, and Niu sat on his fastball, leading to his homer.

“On the positive side, the offense is still swinging the bats,” Saltalamacchia added. “The quality plate appearances were there.”

Falmouth needed its pitching to lock down. Instead, it coughed the lead up again. Laif Palmer (Oregon State/transfer portal) struggled in his first appearance of the season, surrendering four runs over two innings. He posted the ‘Dores’ first 1-2-3 frame in the third but couldn’t replicate it again.

A Ford RBI single in the fourth narrowed Falmouth’s advantage. Then, Larson’s grand slam completely changed the trajectory of the game.

Chatham’s pitching steered it to victory from there. Glasscock struck out the side in the fifth, sitting down Quatrani, Ashton Wilson and Chris Newstrom. He followed by shutting down the Commodores after they loaded the bases in the sixth, getting Osterhouse to ground out weakly to second.

Falmouth’s pitching did rebound after Larson’s shot. Chatham scored just one more run. But the ‘Dores couldn’t engineer a response. It was like a completely different team had taken the field.

After Carl Schmidt plated Kyle Morrison on an RBI groundout to make it 11-8, Chatham’s Cam Johnson escaped without allowing another run. Falmouth continued to flounder with runners in scoring position in the eighth and ninth, as Gavyn Jones crushed Falmouth’s last hopes.

The ‘Dores were doing nearly everything right offensively on Sunday. But Larson’s grand slam made the burst irrelevant. The Commodores never recovered, handing them their three-run defeat.

“Big errors, bases-loaded home run like that, we can't have that happen. We're better than what we were tonight,” Saltalamacchia said.

Noah Nussbaum is the beat reporter for the Falmouth Commodores. You can read all of his articles on the Commodores here.