The downpour began just moments before Poland was supposed to begin its critical Western Maine Conference game with Freeport.
Just a few minutes later, with the rain still falling, Freeport packed its things, boarded its bus and headed home.
The two teams will meet again. The game is tentatively rescheduled for Thursday. Whether it means as much as it would have this past Friday depends on whether either team, or both, can pull off upsets in regularly scheduled games that will come before then. Freeport plays at Fryeburg on Monday. Poland travels to Cape Elizabeth on Tuesday.
Freeport (7-7) and Poland (8-6) went into the weekend holding down the final two playoff spots in the Western Class B Heal Point standings, just percentage points behind Spruce Mountain and Cape Elizabeth and with Oak Hill and Mountain Valley hot on their heels.
The Knights have been playing with an extra sense of urgency for the past week-and-a-half, and it has shown on the scoreboard. They’ve won their last three over Old Orchard Beach, Gray-New Gloucester and Lake Region.
“Three games ago, I told them pretty much every game from here on out is a playoff game,” Poland coach Mike Connor said.
Connor said his players are well aware of the consequences of each game, and not just their own.
“They watch the Heal Points more than I do,” he said. “If there’s half-a-point change, they let me know.”
The Knights know all about close calls. They’ve played in seven one-run games, winning four. The strength of the opponent hasn’t mattered much, either. Two of the tightest games, both losses, came against WMC powers Falmouth and York.
Pitching and defense have kept the Knights in contention, Connor said.
“We’ve been fielding it well. We’ve been pitching it well. If you do that, you have a chance,” he said.
“The pitching has been a combined effort,” the coach added. “Lukas Johnson is throwing strikes. Simard has been battling some upper chest and shoulder issues left over from football that I know have affected him. But he took a perfect game into the seventh inning against Fryeburg on 65 pitches. Ethan Cailler came out of the bullpen against Gray-New Gloucester and threw 3 2/3 innings, gave up one hit and all of the outs he got were strikeouts.”
The young Knights (one senior) are looking for more of a combined effort offensively.
Junior Kaleb Bridgham has been a constant in the middle of the lineup, batting around .470. Connor hopes the return of Bill Bickford from a broken knuckle can give them a spark at the top of the lineup.
Rambler gambler
Last year, Winthrop pulled off the upset of the Western C tournament when it knocked off No. 2 St. Dom’s as a No. 7 seed in the regional quarterfinals.
One week ago, the Ramblers knocked off the previously unbeaten Saints, 4-2, in their only regular season meeting. The win that moved them into the second spot in the Western C Heals, trailing only the Saints heading into the final two games of the season.
It was another in a growing list of impressive victories for Winthrop (11-2), joining triumphs over defending Class C champion (and current No. 3) Dirigo and Class B foes Mountain Valley, Oak Hill and Spruce Mountain.
Incredibly, the Ramblers have compiled that record using only three pitchers all season — junior Jared Hanson and sophomores Ben Allen and Matt Sekerak. One of those three has tossed a complete game in all but two of the Ramblers’ games this season, but coach Marc Fortin isn’t concerned that his staff may be overworked.
“We’re only throwing our kids once a week, so we think we’re being OK,” Fortin said.
The trio has enjoyed plenty of offensive (7.9 runs per game) and defensive support. In the win over St. Dom’s, the Ramblers threw out two runners at the plate and made a number of other key defensive plays.
“They’ve saved a lot of big innings,” Allen said.
“We usually make plays like this just about every game. We don’t have that ace pitcher to just shut people down, so we have to play solid defense every game,” junior center fielder Drew Stratton said.
Bucks didn’t stop there
Buckfield coach Joe McLaughlin went into last season at ease, knowing that if he got the bats and balls to the ballpark on game day, his players would know what to do with them. His veteran-laden team rewarded his faith with Buckfield’s first regional title in 16 years.
Of course, high school coaches can’t enjoy the comfort of having a well-seasoned team for very long. The experience pendulum swings dramatically the other way. So McLaughlin had as many questions as answers during the preseason when anyone asked him if the Bucks were poised to defend their title.
“Over the winter, I didn’t know what to expect. We have a lot of guys at positions they didn’t play much before,” McLaughlin said.
“These guys have stepped up when we’ve needed them to at a lot of new positions,” he added. “But we had some veteran leadership where it’s important with Dalton (Hart) and Jonah (Williams), and Owen Bennett has been hitting the ball very well.”
The all-senior double play combo of Jeff Pepin at second base and Garrett Hamann at shortstop has helped stabilize the infield. But it has been the contributions of new starters such as sophomores Ben Strout, Tyler Vallee and Jared Eastman that have given the Bucks (9-1) the upper-hand in their battle for Western D supremacy with Valley so far.
“Last year, we had more talent and just a lot more people with more experience,” said Hart, a senior. ” Last year, we had four to five guys that were in their 15th season or whatever. This year, we have people who have only played two or three years that are stepping up and playing huge parts.”
Short hops
Postponements forced an unusual quirk in the schedules of Mt. Blue and Dirigo. Both teams will play separate doubleheaders on Monday, although Dirigo has the advantage of being home at Harlow Park for both games.
Mt. Blue is starting at 11 a.m. at Brewer. At the conclusion of that game, the Cougars will cross the Penobscot River to face Bangor at 3 p.m. Mt. Blue will be the home team in Brewer, as the game is a make-up of a May 20 contest that was originally scheduled to be played at Hippach Field in Farmington before it was postponed.
Dirigo will host St. Dom’s at 1 p.m., then turn around and welcome Lisbon for a scheduled 4:30 p.m. start.
Because of all of the rain outs last week, the Maine Principals’ Association extended the deadline to play countable games to Thursday. The next two days include a number of key contests. On Monday, Cony hosts Lewiston, and the Dirigo/St. Dom’s tilt could decide the top two seeds in Western C. On Tuesday, Lewiston travels to Messalonskee, while Oak Hill and Monmouth renew their rivalry at the Mustangs’ Chick Field.
rwhitehouse@sunjournal.com
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