Edward Little’s Kylie Bureau slides into home base as Bangor’s Morgan-Carter Moulton tries to tag her out during the final minutes of the match up in Aubrun on Tuesday afternoon.
AUBURN — Starting off the game with an error was a bad omen for Edward Little.
Too many mistakes, too many fly-outs and too many Bangor hits were the downfall in the Red Eddies’ 9-5 loss in a Class A North softball clash at Sweetser Field on Tuesday.
Madi Drake led off the game by reaching on an EL error. Megan Conner then singled for the Rams (11-2) for the first of her four hits in the game. Both players later scored as the Red Eddies (10-4) failed to make plays defensively.
It looked like EL might make amends for that bad top of the first inning. Taylor Depot and Olivia Jensen hit consecutive one-out singles, with an error bringing Depot home on Jensen’s base hit to right. Another Bangor error drove in Depot to tie the game 2-2.
“I thought we responded to that challenge,” EL coach Elaine Derosby said. “Both teams had two unearned runs in the first inning, so we responded.”
But the Rams responded to the response. Page Cadorette hit a one-out single that was sandwiched between a pair of strikeouts for EL starting pitcher Kylie Bureau. Drake kept the inning alive with a two-out triple to give Bangor the lead back, then Conner followed with a soft single to center that made it 4-2.
“I think that was really big to keep our momentum going and keep our bats swinging,” Conner said.
Bangor starter Lexi Cunningham worked around a two-out error in the bottom of the second to prevent the Red Eddies from answering back, then was part of a Ram hit parade to start the top of the third. Lindy Bezgembluk led off with a single, then Morgan-Carter Moulton followed with another. Grace Perron and Cunningham both hit RBI singles straight up the middle, then Rowan Andrews drove in the third run of the inning with a fifth single two batters later.
“The kids were seeing the ball well,” Bangor coach Don Stanhope said. “We’ve had some games where we hit that hard, but everything was up. And today we started hitting things on a line drive, and moving the ball through the infield.”
“The difference between the two teams today is they hit balls on a line, and hit line drives in the gap, and we just flew the ball out,” Derosby said.
Cunningham was able to work around a two-out single from Grace Beaudet in the bottom half of the frame, but her counterpart, Bureau, wasn’t able to work around two straight hits to lead off the top of the next inning.
Conner started the fourth with a double, then Emma Payne followed with a single up the middle to knock out Bureau.
“(Megan) is the engine that drives us,” Stanhope said. “Her and Emma Payne, the left side of our infield, just their heart is tremendous.”
Chantel Ouellette came on in relief of Bureau and hit Bezgembluk to start her outing, but the Red Eddies did prevent Conner from scoring thanks to a pick-off throw from catcher Emmy Lashua. Moulton was able to drive in Payne with a single, but Bureau (who moved to third base) and Lashua stopped another run from scoring on Perron’s fielder’s choice.
Ouellette allowed just one more hit the rest of the way, a lead-off triple by Conner that led to the final Bangor run in the sixth.
“She’s done (well) for us for the last couple weeks,” Derosby said. “We didn’t know where she was going to be. Last spring, as an eighth grader, she struggled a little bit. Coming in as a freshman, we really had to break some habits, and she’s worked hard at it. She’s a good complement to Kylie, and I can trust either one of them to do it.”
The Red Eddies offense showed life again in the fifth to knock Cunningham out of the game. After Cunningham struck out a pair of batters to start the inning, Depot dropped a single into right-center, then scored on Jensen’s double to deep left-center. Beaudet followed with a triple to straight center to drive in Jensen to cut EL’s deficit to 8-4.
Moulton took over on the mound after that and induced a groundout by Lashua before firing a 1-2-3 frame in the bottom of the sixth.
Edward Little made noise in the bottom of the seventh, getting consecutive one-out singles by Bureau and Depot. Jensen moved the runners over with a groundout and Bureau scored on a wild pitch, but Moulton struck out Beaudet looking to end the game.
“We can’t have moral victories at this point,” Derosby said. “It’s playoff time. We got to fight for position so that we can have home games throughout the playoffs, and we can’t have the moral victory of ‘we came back in a game’ anymore. That’s three out of four (losses) that we have attempted to do that. We just got to play. We got to play seven innings, and we got to jump on a team early, knowing that we have the skills that are ready to go.”
The Red Eddies finish up the regular season at Mt. Ararat and at home against rival Lewiston — two teams with which EL is battling for playoff position.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
Edward Little’s Olivia Jensen lands on first base too late after Bangor’s Lindy Bezgembluk catches the ball to render her out during Tuesday night’s game in Auburn.
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