As Pinkerton baseball manager Ron Manseau and his players boarded their bus, heads hung in defeat, a voice from behind called out. “Hey, did you guys catch something, or what?” “We caught something alright,” replied Manseau. “We caught lighting.”

The shock came when the seventh-seeded Astros fell via the mercy rule, 10-0, to Manchester Memorial, the No. 15 seed, in the quarterfinals of the Class L tournament.

“We haven’t been ‘10- runned’ all year, so it’s kind of embarrassing,” said Manseau. “It started with the Keene game, and (Memorial) just started putting it together at the right time. We ran into a buzzsaw. What can I say?”

Indeed, after a 7-12 regular season, the Crusaders used a two-week layoff to regroup before upsetting 16-win and No. 2-seeded Keene, 8-4, in the opening round of the playoffs.

“’I’m not going to say those two weeks helped us, but it got our 10 seniors in a frame of mind where they realized this year is it,” said Memorial’s manager, Don Menswar. “And now that every game could be their last day, they’re at a point where they’re playing like we expected them to all season.”

The team showed hardly a glimpse of its current form during the regular season, so add Menswar to the list of those surprised by the recent developments.

“We were averaging six walks a game, three errors, a couple hit batsmen. We’d win a ball game here and there, but it’d be 15-14,” he said. “We lost our last three … I really wasn’t confident in this team. I mean, we haven’t done this all year. Forget up and down, we’ve been down. We flat-out struggled all year.”

But Menswar credits his seniors, including Kyle Morrill of Auburn, for turning the season around at the right time. “We’re gelling at the right time,” said the coach. “We’re throwing strikes. We’re getting hits in timely situations. We’re not making errors. We’re just playing good, good Memorial baseball.”

Even up 10 runs against Pinkerton, however, the Crusaders were kept on their toes. Twice the players ran out of the dugout and onto the field in jubilation. Twice they were sent back.

On the third attempt, Memorial was finally allowed to celebrate its accomplishment.

An umpire first called the game based on the 10-run Class L mercy rule, another stepped in and said the procedure applied only to opening-round games. After a conference, the officials changed their minds three more times until finally Memorial was declared the winner and sent to the semifinals against No. 3 Goffstown. The contest was scheduled for Wednesday, June 11.

“We’re on a roll,” said Menswar. “They’re as good as we expected, and we’ve been telling them all year that they’re this good, and they didn’t believe it. I don’t know, maybe they’re believing it now.”