AUGUSTA — The Messalonskee Eagles managed just one hit in the Class A softball state championship game.
And as far as they’re concerned, it’s still soaring through the air.
Kristy Preglovisk’s first-inning home run and the two-hit pitching of Kirsten Pelletier propelled Messalonskee to a 1-0 victory over previously undefeated Scarborough in Saturday’s state final at Cony High School to earn the Eagles their first championship since 2005.
Preglovisk, one of just two seniors on the Messalonskee roster, lofted a 3-2 pitch from Scarborough sophomore Lilly Volk well over the left-field fence with two out and nobody on in the bottom of the first for the game’s first — and only — run.
“Honestly I don’t know what the pitch was,” said Preglovisk of her ninth home run of the spring. “All I thought was that I just needed to hit it and I timed it right. I hit it and when I heard that noise I knew that it was going to go over the fence.”
Messalonskee managed just one other baserunner during the 1-hour, 24-minute pitchers’ duel on a sixth-inning Scarborough error, but for Pelletier that was plenty of offensive support.
The junior righthander yielded singles in each of the first two innings, and beyond that used a mix of fastballs, changeups and screwballs to strike out 12 batters while walking three during a 108-pitch complete-game performance — against a Scarborough offense that had added 10.9 runs per game.
The Red Storm did advance five runners to second base but none to third, with Messalonskee catcher Taylor Easler — who called the pitches for Pelletier — throwing out Scarborough’s Chloe Gorey on an attempted steal of third base in the fifth inning.
“The Messalonskee pitcher did a tremendous job,” said Scarborough coach Tom Griffin. “That’s the best pitcher we saw all year.”
“I thought we could make some adjustments, and we just weren’t able to do it,” he added. “When you have a pitcher who’s throwing spot-on — she had her rise ball up in the zone where it needed to be and she kept us off balance with the change-up — a great pitcher can dominate a good offense.”
Volk kept Scarborough close with a dominant pitching performance that included nine strikeouts and no walks, with a fly ball down the left-field line by Dakota Bragg in the fourth inning and a flyout to the warning track in left by Preglovisk in the sixth the only Messalonskee at-bats that came close to generating a hit after the first inning.
“You’ve got to look across the way to Scarborough and you’ve got to feel bad,” said Messalonskee coach Leo Bouchard. “Their pitcher made one mistake. She made one mistake, but she pitched a heck of a game.”
Scarborough (19-1) was seeking its fifth state title in nine years, a run that included a 5-0 victory over Messalonskee in the 2011 state final.
But 17-3 Messalonskee, which rallied from a 2-0 deficit to edge Bangor 3-2 in eight innings in Wednesday’s Eastern A final, used similar survival instincts to capture the gold glove.
“We prepared for this, and the close game against Bangor prepared us for a close game today,” said Pelletier. “You just have to believe in yourself, and I believed in myself and the team believed in each other today. This is great.”
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