BANGOR, Maine — Southern Aroostook dominated Aroostook County Class D baseball this spring behind a high-powered offense that averaged nearly 13 runs per game.
With the Eastern Maine championship on the line Tuesday night, the Warriors were unable to produce runs consistently against Stearns High School’s Nick Dumas.
The senior right-hander scattered seven hits and the Minutemen piled up 14 hits on his behalf on the way to an 11-3 victory at Mansfield.
“It’s getting rather annoying being the bridesmaid,” admitted Warriors coach David Day.
Second-seeded Stearns of Millinocket (16-3) faces Western Maine winner Searsport (15-4), a 13-3 winner over Richmond on Tuesday, in Saturday’s 1 p.m. state championship game at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish.
Top-seeded Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook, making its third consecutive appearance in the regional final, wound up 15-3. It was not the ending the Warriors had envisioned.
“An 0-3 record here (at Mansfield since 2013) really isn’t what we were looking for,” said Southern Aroostook senior Gage LeFay. “We were hoping to get one for our senior year and for the rest of the team, but sometimes you just come up short.”
The Warriors struggled in all aspects of the game against the Minutemen.
They had trouble stringing hits together against Dumas, had difficulty in the field (four errors) and could not keep the Stearns offense in check.
“There was a lot of defensive mistakes. I don’t think they were necessarily physical. I think they were just nerves,” LeFay said.
“We wanted to give them a good show and we were kind of disappointed that it didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to,” he added.
Zach Bouchard was among six Stearns players who posted two hits and led the way with two singles and three RBIs. Seth Garvin knocked in two runs with a double, a single and a sacrifice fly.
Dumas (two singles) and Marc Morneault (triple, single) each knocked in a run, while Devin Whitney tripled, singled and scored three runs and Jordan Cullen added two singles.
“Last year we didn’t hit well in the playoffs, we kind of laid down,” said Stearns coach Don Boyington. “This year we said the first priority is we’ve got to hit. We’ve worked hard on it all year long.”
The Minutemen, who are averaging 10.7 runs in the playoffs, piled on seven hits and seven runs in their last two at-bats to break the game open.
“One through nine’s been coming through all year,” said Morneault, one of 12 seniors on the Stearns squad. “Last year we weren’t a very good hitting team, but this year everyone’s hitting.”
Dumas, a senior right-hander, pitched a workmanlike seven-hitter. He utilized a sharp-breaking curveball to help rack up 10 strikeouts against only three walks.
He retired nine straight batters and 13 of 14 men he faced during one stretch.
“He mixed his pitches well,” LeFay said.
The Minutemen also played errorless defense to help prevent the Warriors from putting together any big innings.
LeFay paced Southern Aroostook with three singles and an RBI, Hunter Walker singled twice and Austin White contributed a run-scoring single.
“We just had a hard time getting a bat on the ball,” LeFay said. “We were watching a lot of called third strikes.”
The Warriors scored in the first inning when LeFay beat out a leadoff single, stole second and scored when Nate Lilley fisted an opposite-field single to right. However, Lilley was doubled off first base when he retreated to the bag on Parker Walker’s chopper to third.
“We ran into a little bit of a baserunning problem in the first inning that might have shut down a rally,” Day said.
Stearns equalized in the second after Morneault blooped a leadoff single but was thrown out trying to steal. That brought up Whitney, who rammed a triple to right-center and scored when the throw to the cutoff man bounced away.
The Minutemen seized the lead with a two-out rally in the third. Dumas lashed an opposite-field single that bounced past the right fielder and allowed him to take third.
Bouchard pounded an RBI single to left, then scored when Morneault scorched a liner that eluded the dive of the left fielder and went for a triple to make it 3-1.
The Minutemen added a run in the fifth when Garvin doubled to left-center and came home on a single to right by Dumas.
The Warriors responded with a run in the fifth with two out. Walker ended Dumas’ string of nine consecutive batters retired by punching a single to right field. He advanced on a wild pitch and raced home on Lefay’s hard single to center.
Stearns scored five times in the sixth. Kacey McVey stroked a run-scoring single, Garvin delivered a sacrifice fly and Bouchard stung a two-run single.
Southern Aroostook got a run back in the sixth on an RBI single by Austin White, but the Warriors still faced a six-run deficit.
The Minutemen got an RBI single from Gauvin during a two-run seventh.
