BANGOR, Maine — Sam Huston used a head-first slide at the plate to score on Andrew Hillier’s two-out single in the top of the ninth inning Friday night as the Coffee News of Bangor Comrades edged Post 51 of Oakland 3-2 in a winners’ bracket game of the American Legion Zone 1 baseball tournament at Husson University.
The win clinches a berth in next week’s state tournament for the Comrades, the defending state champion.
“We obviously want to go to where we went last year,” said Huston, referring to the Northeast Regional tournament where Coffee News went 2-2 a year ago. “But it’s one step at a time.”
No. 2 Coffee News (15-5) also remained unbeaten in the zone tourney and advances to the championship round at 7 p.m. Saturday and will face the winner of the 4 p.m. elimination game between No. 1 Post 51 (14-5) and No. 3 Brewer, which eliminated No. 4 R.H. Foster of Hampden earlier Friday.
Trevor DeLaite drew a one-out walk in the top of the ninth, and while he was forced out at second on a grounder to shortstop by Huston, Huston reached second base on an overthrow to first base by shortstop Jared Cunningham.
Hillier then grounded an opposite-field single to shallow left, and Huston never hesitated as he rounded third base. The throw by Post 51 left fielder Zach Mathieu was on target, but Huston slid just ahead of the tag by catcher Trevor Gettig to give the Comrades the go-ahead run.
“Off the bat I knew it was going to go through and I saw it tip off the shortstop’s glove and I thought, ‘I’ve got this,’” said Huston. “Then I hear coach [Dave] Morris yelling ‘You’ve got to get going,’ so I just picked it up and tried to get going as fast as I could. I saw the throw go up the line a little bit so I tried to slide out front toward the plate and the field of play and I got it with my right hand. I beat the throw.
“It was a do-or-die play. If you get thrown out, you get thrown out, but you’ve got to take chances in games like these. It was a huge chance to take, but getting that winning run and winning the game was huge.”
Hillier then earned the pitching win with a scoreless bottom of the ninth. The right-hander yielded a one-out infield hit to Dylan Hapworth but got Jake Dexter to ground sharply to DeLaite at first base to start a game-ending 3-6 double play.
Hillier paced Bangor’s nine-hit offense with three singles, while starting pitcher Peter Kemble singled twice. Mathieu had three of Post 51’s eight hits, all singles.
Coffee News snapped a 1-1 tie in the top of the seventh as Ryan Brookings sharply grounded a leadoff triple down the left-field line and scored on Crichton’s single to center.
Huston followed with a one-out single to right, but Devin Warren came on in relief of Post 51 starter Ben Frazee and struck out the next two batters to keep it a one-run game.
Post 51 tied the game in the bottom of the eighth. Gettig smacked a leadoff single off the second-base bag and took second base when the ball was bobbled in center field. Cunningham, the No. 9 hitter, followed with an RBI single up the middle to mark the end of Kemble’s evening on the mound.
Hiller came on to strike out Joe LeClair with a backdoor curve and then got Warren to hit into an inning-ending 1-6-3 double play.
Kemble, who will be a junior at Bangor High School this fall, scattered seven hits over his seven-plus innings on the mound with three strikeouts and one walk.
“I couldn’t be more proud of him,” said Huston, the Coffee News catcher. “He struggled a little bit in high school, he’ll admit it, but he’s really buckled down in Legion. He’s one of our go-to guys, and he’s going to have to be that if we’re going to go where we want to go.”
Kemble’s infield single to shortstop with two outs in the top of the first drove home Crichton with the game’s first run.
Crichton drew a leadoff walk and Huston followed with a one-out walk, then the runners advanced to third and second bases on a wild pitch before Kemble tapped a two-out slow hopper that tipped off the glove of Cunningham, who was charging in from shortstop.
Crichton scored on the play, but Post 51 second baseman Dexter picked up the loose ball and threw Huston out at the plate to end the inning.
Post 51 scored the equalizer in the bottom of the fourth. Mathieu hit a single to center and scored from first on a hit-and-run single to right-center by Hapworth.
Coffee News (14-5) 100 000 101 — 3 9 2
Post 51 (15-4) 000 100 010 — 2 8 1
Kemble, Hillier (8) and Huston; Frazee, Warren (7) and Gettig
