Photo credit: Sophia Soropoulos

After an off day, the Birds flocked back to Eldredge Park after a wild game in Falmouth, where despite putting up their most runs of the season, couldn't walk away with a win. They looked to change that in front of their home crowd on Wednesday night with the struggling Harwich Mariners coming to town.

Michael Foltz (George Washington), Kelly Nicholson's starter on the mound, who coming into the matchup supplied the league's lowest ERA, quickly went 1-2-3 against the top of the Harwich order.

In the Mariners' next at-bat, they faired much better against Foltz, as back-to-back hits put two runners in scoring position (Cade Kurland on second, Matt Scannell on third), and a Tommy Barth (East Tennessee State) groundout brought Scannell home.

Looking to add some cushion to his team's 1-0 lead with two outs, Cam Maldonado (Northeastern) smacked a three-run homer over the wall, giving the Mariners an early 4-0 lead.

Just as they did in Falmouth, however, the Birds responded, cutting the Mariners' lead in half with back-to-back RBI singles from Ben Zeigler (Hawaii) and Hudson Shupe (Gonzaga).

After Tommy Allman (Jacksonville) relieved Blake Morningstar (Wake Forrest) on the mound and promptly went three-up, three-down, Jack Gurevitch (San Diego), who Nicholson calls "the hottest player on the Cape," led off the bottom of the fifth with his first homer of the summer to bring the Birds within one.

With many beginning to mention the San Diego product's name in Cape Cod Baseball League Player of the Week conversations, Gurevitch is simply happy to be in Orleans.

"It's an honor being out here, being on the Firebirds," Gurevitch said. "I'm blessed to step foot on this field and to give it everything I have."

Gurevtich, who first put the league on notice with his performance in Brewster earlier this week, said it was only a matter of time before his showing became a spark for the rest of his guys; a comment that's starting to age like fine wine.

Just an inning after Gurevitch's homer, Zeigler (Hawaii) hit his first homer of the summer to the same spot, giving Orleans its first lead of the night (5-4).

Zeigler wasn't the only Bird to bring Gurevitch's comments to life; the entire Firebirds order reached base, an accomplishment of which Nicholson couldn't be prouder.

"I'm proud of their patience, I'm just really proud," Nicholson said. "They've been out for early work, and it's just great to see the extra hard work paying off."

The Birds tallied two more runs to their total after Zeigler's homer, and just like he had for the previous two frames, Itsuki Takemoto (Hawaii) drowned the Mariners offense, holding them scoreless until Tucker Biven came in and closed out the win for the Birds.

While excited with the quality win, Nicholson has had his mind set on the next since the game's final out.

"It's nice that we got the win, but we got to go home, eat, get some rest, and do it all over again tomorrow," Nicholson said. "Tonight doesn't have anything to do with tomorrow, so tomorrow we'll try to go 1-0 again."

The Birds will look to do just that and go 1-0 on Thursday night in a makeup of the June 30 game against the Bourne Braves at Eldredge Park.

First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.