Eight high school baseball teams from around Maine will pursue the same goal Saturday — a state championship.
Bangor will seek to repeat as the best of Class A when it faces South Portland at 3 p.m. at Morton Field in Augusta, and Camden Hills of Rockport will try to win its first state title against defending Class B champion Greely of Cumberland Center at 4:30 p.m. at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish.
The Class C final is set for a 3 p.m. first pitch from Bangor’s Mansfield Stadium with Bucksport squaring off against Saint Dominic Academy of Auburn. Stearns of Millinocket and Searsport will meet for their battle for Class D honors at 1 p.m. at Saint Joseph’s College.
Class A: Bangor (17-2) brings a 12-game winning streak into its bid for the 11th state title in school history.
“It’s not a surprise,” said Bangor coach Jeff Fahey after his team’s 1-0 win over Brewer in the Eastern Maine final. “The way we played early on, I thought it would be a struggle to get back here, but that’s the third playoff game in a row without an error, and we didn’t hit a lot [against Brewer], but we aren’t taking a lot of bad swings, either.”
Senior right-hander Andrew Hillier (4-0) is expected to get the pitching start for Bangor against a South Portland team making its first trip to the state final since 1991.
Coach Mike Owens’ Red Riots (15-4) lost three of their last five regular-season games but rebounded with three one-run wins in the Western A tourney, including a 2-1 victory over top-seeded Portland in the final.
Class B: Camden Hills (13-7) entered postseason play with no momentum after dropping six of its last eight regular-season games.
But a pitching staff anchored by seniors Daulton Wickenden and Ben Rollins has yielded just 1.5 runs per game during the postseason to lead the Windjammers’ to their first regional crown since 1999.
“We never got down on ourselves,” said Windjammers’ coach Jeff Hart, “and that’s a credit to our senior leadership. I kept telling them to just keep believing and good things will happen. That’s the way baseball is, it has a way of turning things around if you do the right things.”
Greely (14-5) is after its fourth state title in the last nine years after edging Caribou 1-0 in the 2014 title game.
The third-ranked Rangers needed nine innings to earn a 4-3 quarterfinal win over Yarmouth before ousting No. 2 York in the Western B semifinals and top-seeded Cape Elizabeth 3-1 in the regional final. Greely features a Mr. Baseball finalist in senior pitcher-first baseman Will Bryant.
Class C: Five star seniors will lead Bucksport into a state final for the first time since 2006, when the Golden Bucks were in Class B.
But ask Asher Bowden, Jack Cyr, Carter DeRedin, Dylan Soper and Matthew Stewart their motivation for winning the school’s first baseball state championship, and there’s a bigger picture involved.
“It means a lot to us, but we’re trying to give a lot to the town, too, with the [Verso Paper] mill shutting down [late last year],” said Bowden. “We’re trying to play for everybody because we feel like everybody’s behind us and pushing us forward. When we succeed, they’re so happy for us, and it’s a blast to see them that way.”
Bowden, who pitched 15-4 Bucksport to a 1-0 victory over 2014 state champion Washington Academy of East Machias, is expected to get the start against a tradition-laden Saint Dominic program that is seeking its fifth state crown in the last 11 years under veteran coach Bob Blackman.
The Saints, 15-5 after a 5-1 win over Winthrop in the Western Maine final, likely will turn to a senior left-hander of its own in Mitch Lorenz, who at 7-5 has been the pitcher of record in 60 percent of his team’s games this spring.
Class D: Stearns and Searsport met barely two weeks ago, with the teams splitting a doubleheader on June 4 to finish second in their respective regions.
Both had remarkably similar seasons, with 16-3 Stearns’ only other losses to Eastern C third seed Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln, while 15-4 Searsport dropped two other games to Eastern C champion Bucksport and one to Eastern D Penobscot Valley of Howland.
One difference is that Stearns’ roster has 12 seniors — many of whom contributed to the 2013 team that reached the Eastern C final — while Searsport has just two seniors.
“When all of us were in eighth grade, we had a really good team and we only lost one game,” said Stearns senior Nick Dumas. “Our coaches were saying that our senior year we were going to do something good. This is the year.”
Stearns averaged nearly 11 runs per game in the Eastern Maine playoffs, including an 11-3 victory over top-ranked Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook in the final.
Searsport, competing in Western Maine for the second year, also had an offensive explosion in its regional championship game, besting No. 1 Richmond 13-3 in five innings.
Dumas and Searsport ace Troy Reynolds are expected to start on the mound after securing victories in Tuesday’s regional finals.
Searsport is seeking its fifth state title overall and first since 2008, while for Stearns a win would secure its first state championship since winning the 2000 Class C crown.
