CARIBOU, Maine — Hannaford and Sleepers are facing off in the Caribou Little League championship series.
The top seeds in the National and American divisions, respectively, each won a pair of playoff contests last week to reach the finals.
Hannaford scored a 14-13 victory over the Eagles in last Wednesdayís semifinal round matchup and then bested Maine Veterans Home/VFW in the National finals Friday, 7-1.
Sleepers eased past the Northstars, 25-3, in last Tuesday’s division semifinals before dominating the Tigers in the American League title game Thursday, 21-4.
Other scores of playoff games played last week: Northstars 10, Knights of Columbus 5; Eagles 2, S.W. Collins 1; Machias Savings Bank 6, Police 11; Tigers 9, KeyBank 7; and MVH/VFW 4, Machias Savings Bank 0.
The championship series schedule is as follows:
Tuesday, July 14: Little League championship, game 1.
Wednesday, July 15: Little League championship, game 2.
Friday, July 17: Little League championship, game 3 (if necessary).
All games begin at 6 p.m.
Summaries of games played recently are as follows:
Hannaford 7, MVH/VFW 1
In a game that was much closer than the final score indicates, Hannaford earned a trip to the League championship with Friday’s win over a MVH/VFW team that had bested them twice in the regular season.
Following a spectacular defensive play at the plate by Ethan Holdsworth on a great throw from Sawyer Deprey to end the top of the first inning and rob Jake Berkoski of an inside-the-park home run, Hannaford’s offense came out on fire as they scored five runs on triples from Sawyer Deprey and Miles Collier, a single by Lars Spooner and a sacrifice by Alex Picard.
After that, MVH-VFW’s Brannon Hall and Hannaford’s Deprey silenced both offenses with a great pitcher’s duel. It was not until the bottom of the fifth when Hannaford scored again, tallying twice on a Destinee Goodridge triple and Picardís second sacrifice of the game.
MVH-VFW got on the board in the sixth on an RBI single by Hall, but in the end the early deficit was too much for MVH-VFW to overcome. MVH-VFW concluded their season with an overall 10-6 record.
Hannaford 14, Eagles 13
Hannaford rallied for the unlikely win in the National Division semifinals played last Wednesday.
After jumping out to an early 6-0 lead, Hannaford pulled its starting pitcher, Sawyer Deprey, who had held the Eagles hitless through 2-2/3 innings in an effort to preserve his pitch count.
The move nearly backfired as the Eagles’ bats came alive in the fourth inning. They scored seven times and took the lead which they held going into the bottom of the sixth. Facing what seemed like an insurmountable five-run deficit, Hannaford rallied for six runs to garner the win on two RBIs each by Holdsworth and Jonah Thayer and a game-winning RBI hit by Spooner.
S.W. Collins 10, MSB 7
Caleb Espling was the starter and winning pitcher and Landon Thompson was solid in a relief role to propel SW Collins to the victory over Machias Savings Bank.
Espling tripled and scored twice, Thompson had two singles and Edie Shea picked up the game-winning RBI for the victors.
Brevin Barnes singled, doubled, and scored three times for Machias Savings Bank.
