Coach Jeff Fahey’s defending state champions jumped out to an early lead and rode DeLaite’s dominant performance on the mound to a 4-1 victory over Edward Little of Auburn at Mansfield Stadium to secure the No. 1 seed for the regional playoffs that begin next week.

“I’m very proud of my boys, we had a great regular season. Bangor’s a great program and we’re working to get to that level and consistently play with them every time we step on the field,” said EL coach Dave Jordan, whose team (12-4) had its nine-game win streak ended but will enter the playoffs as a top-four seed.

“We’ve been able to beat everybody in the league at least once (except Brewer) and avenge our losses, we’ve done a lot of good things to get ready for the playoffs. But we just ran into a buzzsaw today,” he added.

That buzzsaw was DeLaite, a junior left-hander who dominated the Red Eddies with his fastball early and confused them by adding his curveball to the mix in the late innings.

DeLaite (5-0) struck out 12, walked one and did not yield an earned run while outdueling EL sophomore Jarod Norcross-Plourde.

“He was in command all the time,” Fahey said.

DeLaite allowed just one leadoff batter to reach base, which helped prevent the Red Eddies from employing the small-ball tactics that were pivotal in their 5-4, eight-inning win over the Rams earlier this season.

“Getting that first out of the inning definitely helps, and getting the first strike puts more pressure on them,” DeLaite said. “I was just trying to establish my fastball and I spotted it pretty well early. I added more curveballs later just to change their eye level and get them thinking, but it was mostly fastballs.”

Bangor (14-2) complemented DeLaite’s pitching with tight defense and timely offense. Sam Huston, Derek Fournier and Andrew Hillier delivered two-out, RBI hits that produced all four runs.

“The biggest difference between today and when we played EL down there was we had opportunities the first time but we had no two-out hits,” said Fahey, whose club enters postseason play riding a nine-game winning streak.

Bangor grabbed a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on consecutive two-out, RBI hits by Huston and Fournier.

Jordan Derrah drew a one-out walk and and scored the game’s first run when Huston drilled a double to the right-center field gap.

“We were talking before the game about trying to get out on them early so I was just trying to see my pitch and drive it hoping that it would get down,” Huston said. “Luckily it did so.”

Fournier singled to right on the next pitch to plate Huston.

“Getting two runs in the first against them was huge,” said Fahey.

DeLaite struck out six of the first seven batters he faced before Brendan Knapp reached on catcher’s interference with one out in the third. Luke Sterling sacrificed Knapp to second and Austin Cox hit an RBI single to right to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Norcross-Plourde retired Bangor in order in the third and fourth before hitting the Rams’ Johnny Cote with a pitch to open the bottom of the fifth. Cote went to second on a wild pitch before Kyle Stevenson chopped an infield hit off home plate.

When Stevenson stole second base Bangor had two runners in scoring position with nobody out. Norcross-Plourde induced DeLaite to hit a 6-2 fielder’s choice grounder that cut down Cote at the plate, and a strikeout of Derrah left the EL right-hander within one out of escaping the threat unharmed.

Hillier then ran the count to 2-2 before hitting a high chopper toward shortstop that Cox couldn’t handle on the short hop. Stevenson and DeLaite both scored on the single to give Bangor some breathing room.

“You can say the ground ball just misses our glove, but with good teams the breaks go their way,” Jordan said. “I thought they put pressure on us and when they needed to were able to execute the plays.”

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