BANGOR, Maine — Stearns High School came into the playoffs determined that it was going to score some runs.
On Tuesday night, the Minutemen’s postseason plate production continued.
Stearns of Millinocket collected 14 hits to back the steady pitching of senior Nick Dumas while posting an 11-3 victory over Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook in front of an estimated 450 fans at Mansfield Stadium.
Coach Don Boyington’s second-seeded Stearns ballclub (16-3) of Millinocket faces Western Maine winner Searsport (15-4), a 13-3 winner over Richmond on Tuesday, in Saturday’s 1 p.m. state championship game at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish.
Top-seeded Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook, making its third consecutive appearance in the regional final, wound up 15-3 under coach David Day.
Zach Bouchard was among six Stearns players who posted two hits and led the way with two singles and three RBIs. Seth Garvin knocked in two runs with a double, a single and a sacrifice fly.
Dumas (two singles) and batterymate Marc Morneault (triple, single) each knocked in a run, while Devin Whitney tripled, singled and scored three runs and Jordan Cullen added two singles.
“Last year we didn’t hit well in the playoffs, we kind of laid down,” Boyington said. “This year we said the first priority is we’ve got to hit. We’ve worked hard on it all year long.”
The Minutemen, who are averaging 10.7 runs in the playoffs, piled on seven hits and seven runs in their last two at-bats to break the game open.
“One through nine’s been coming through all year,” said Morneault, one of 12 seniors on the Stearns squad. “Last year we weren’t a very good hitting team, but this year everyone’s hitting.”
Dumas, a senior right-hander, pitched a workmanlike seven-hitter. He utilized a sharp-breaking curveball to help rack up 10 strikeouts against only three walks.
He retired nine straight batters and 13 of 14 men he faced during one stretch.
“Usually, if I can’t get it working then I just throw a fastball by them,” Dumas said. “Some of them weren’t catching up to it and some of them were.”
The Minutemen also played errorless defense to help prevent the Warriors from putting together any big innings.
Southern Aroostook has piled up the runs all season (12.8 per game), but was stymied on Tuesday.
Gage Lefay paced Southern Aroostook with three singles and an RBI, Hunter Walker singled twice and Austin White contributed a run-scoring single.
“We just had a hard time getting a bat on the ball,” Lefay said. “We were watching a lot of called third strikes.”
The Warriors appeared to have some jitters in the field, committing four errors and allowing a handful of fly balls and popups to drop in.
“There were a lot of defensive mistakes. I don’t think they were necessarily physical. I think they were just nerves,” Lefay said.
The Warriors scored in the first despite demonstrating some nerves. Lefay beat out a leadoff single, stole second and scored when Nate Lilley fisted an opposite-field single to right.
However, Lilley was doubled off first base when he retreated to the bag on Parker Walker’s chopper to third.
“We ran into a little bit of a baserunning problem in the first inning that might have shut down a rally,” Day said.
Stearns equalized in the second after Morneault blooped a leadoff single but was thrown out trying to steal. That brought up Whitney, who rammed a triple to right-center and scored when the throw to the cutoff man bounced away.
The Minutemen seized the lead with a two-out rally in the third. Dumas lashed an opposite-field single that bounced past the right fielder and allowed him to take third.
Bouchard pounded an RBI single to left, then scored when Morneault scorched a liner that eluded the dive of the left fielder and went for a triple to make it 3-1.
The Minutemen added a run in the fifth when Garvin doubled to left-center and came home on a single to right by Dumas.
The Warriors responded with a run in the fifth with two out. Walker ended Dumas’ string of nine consecutive batters retired by punching a single to right field. He advanced on a wild pitch and raced home on Lefay’s hard single to center.
Stearns scored five times in the sixth. Kacey McVey stroked a run-scoring single, Garvin delivered a sacrifice fly and Bouchard stung a two-run single.
Southern Aroostook got a run back in the sixth on an RBI single by Austin White, but the Warriors still faced a six-run deficit.
The Minutemen got an RBI single from Gauvin during a two-run seventh.