BOURNE, Mass. — Stuck in the depths of a 3-for-27 slump, Nick Dumesnil was searching for answers when he received a pivotal piece of advice from his head coach at California Baptist, Gary Adcock.

“Be yourself and destroy the ball,” Adcock told him before Tuesday night's game against the Bourne Braves. “Crush it to the pull side.”

The advice proved prophetic. With Brewster and Bourne knotted at three in the eighth inning, Dumesnil turned on a fastball and crushed it to left field for a go-ahead solo shot, perhaps the Whitecaps’ biggest hit of the season.

“I got in a hitter’s count and I was sitting on nothing but a fastball,” Dumesnil said. “I was not gonna miss my opportunity with that one.”

The pivotal moment highlighted Brewster’s 6-3 win over the Braves at Doran Park on Tuesday, a grind-it-out victory that featured contributions from up and down the roster.

Newcomers Drew Faurot and DeAmez Ross — both from Florida State — kicked things off in the second with a pair of strong first impressions.

After right fielder Jayden Hylton (Stetson) drew a one-out walk, Faurot cranked a ground-rule double in his first at-bat with the Whitecaps — moving Hylton to third. Ross drove them both home a few batters later, lining a single to center field on the first pitch he saw.

“I’m happy for them,” Brewster manager Jamie Shevchik said. “They came in and solidified themselves over why they’re supposed to be here.”

Last week, Faurot and Ross were competing with the Seminoles for the College World Series in Omaha, along with a few other new Whitecaps: Boston Flannery (North Carolina) and Brody Donay (Florida).

Those fresh faces will help fill the void left by Nolan Schubart (Oklahoma State), Daniel Cuvet (Miami), Gabe Davis (Oklahoma State) and Patrick Forbes (Louisville), who all departed for Team USA Collegiate National Team Training Camp in Cary, North Carolina.

Aggressive baserunning — Brewster’s MO so far this season — helped deliver a third run in the fourth. Dumesnil reached on a walk, then stole second and, a few pitches later, third. He scored on a groundout from catcher Ryder Helfrick (Arkansas).

Meanwhile, a solid evening for Luke Guth (Vanderbilt) and the Brewster bullpen held things together on the other side of the ball.

Guth tossed four innings of two-run ball with three strikeouts — all of which came in a dominant bottom of the second. The Braves managed just four hits off the right-hander, who also picked off Bourne center fielder Chris Stanfield (LSU) to end the third.

Bourne scored its first run off Guth in the third, when Clay Grady drove home Davis Gillespie on a sacrifice fly to center. It added another in the fourth on a double from Camden Kozeal (Vanderbilt), which drove home Ethan Conrad from first base.

Jacob Marlowe (Florida State) took over for the fifth and most of the sixth. He dealt a 1-2-3 fifth with two strikeouts but ran into trouble in the sixth, surrendering back-to-back singles and a game-tying sacrifice fly. DJ Primeaux (LSU) — who Shevchik called Brewster’s “go-to guy” — kept the Braves in check from there, pitching 2 1/3 perfect innings with a pair of strikeouts.

At the plate, though, the Whitecaps looked rudderless. Beginning with Helfrick’s RBI groundout, Bourne retired 16 consecutive Brewster hitters — a stretch that featured eight strikeouts and a number of noncompetitive at-bats. Braves reliever Justin West (Louisville) was particularly dominant, relying on his 12-6 curveball to keep the Whitecaps off balance and ineffective.

That was, until Dumesnil stepped to the plate in the eighth. His blast made it 4-3, Brewster, a lead the Whitecaps never relinquished.

Helfrick followed it up with a solo blast of his own in the top of the ninth, and first baseman Cooper Vest (BYU) added an RBI knock to drive home Faurot later in the frame.

Parker Detmers (Louisville) closed things out in the ninth, working a scoreless frame after walking the first two hitters he faced.

With the result, Brewster snapped its three-game losing streak and boosted its record to 4-6 ahead of Wednesday’s off day.

“You want to get closer and closer to .500,” Shevchik said. “Not a lot of teams played tonight in our division, and we gained a little bit of momentum.”

Title photo credit: Avery Raimondo.