Coffee News of Bangor hadn’t won an American Legion baseball state championship in 35 years until breaking through last summer.
Now coach Dave Morris’ Comrades are inching ever so closer to making it two in a row.
Johnny Cote’s RBI single with one out in the bottom of the 10th inning Friday afternoon lifted Coffee News to a 4-3 victory over Post 51 of Oakland, leaving the Bangor team as the lone unbeaten team remaining in the double-elimination state tournament through three days of play at the Wainwright Complex in South Portland.
Peter Kemble hit a one-out single off Post 51 reliever Jake Dexter in the bottom of the 10th, then reached third as Kyle Stevenson was hit by a pitch and Jordan Derrah walked.
Cote then served a 1-2 fastball on the outside corner of the plate over the drawn-in Post 51 infield and into right field to drive home Kemble with the game-winning run in the sixth meeting of the summer between the two Zone 1 rivals. Each team has won three of the meetings.
Left-hander Trevor DeLaite earned his second pitching win of the tournament with 2⅓ hitless innings in support of starter Andrew Hillier, who allowed three earned runs over his 7⅔ innings.
Each team had 10 hits in the game, with DeLaite and Ben Crichton each singling twice for Coffee News and Dylan Hapworth contributing three hits for Post 51.
Coffee News (3-0 in the tourney) will face the only team it has yet to face among the final four survivors in the event, 2-1 Morrill Post of South Portland, at 3 p.m. Saturday. Post 51 (2-1) will face Staples Crossing-Eliot Post 188 (2-1) in an elimination game at 11 a.m.
Staples Crossing stayed alive earlier Friday with an 11-4 victory over Tri-Town of Poland, Minot and Mechanic Falls in one of two elimination games that began the day. Morrill Post ousted the Sebago Lakers 11-8 in the other contest.
The Coffee News-Morrill Post game will be a rematch of sorts of the 2015 Class A high school state championship game between Bangor and South Portland, which Bangor won 5-4 to secure its second straight title at that level.
Even if Coffee News loses to Morrill Post on Saturday, the Comrades would advance to the Legion tournament’s championship game at 3:30 p.m. Sunday as the last team to suffer its first loss.
If Coffee News defeats Morrill Post, it would play the Post 51-Staples Crossing survivor at noon Sunday needing just one win in two possible games to secure the state crown and a berth in the American Legion Northeast Regional Tournament to be held in Bristol, Connecticut, beginning Tuesday.
Coffee News (17-8 overall) jumped out to a 1-0 win in the bottom of the first inning against Post 51 starter A.J. Godin. A leadoff single by Crichton and a hit-and-run single by DeLaite put runners on first and third. Sam Huston then was hit by a pitch to load the bases with no one out before Crichton scored on Hillier’s sacrifice fly.
The Comrades added two runs in the bottom of the fourth to build a 3-0 lead. Cote reached on a one-out error, then Ryan Brookings singled to left and Crichton walked before DeLaite hit an RBI single and Huston followed with a sacrifice fly.
Post 51 relievers Dan Pooler and Devin Warren came on to shut out Coffee News over the next five innings, giving the Zone 1 tournament champions the chance to make their second comeback in as many days after rallying from a 6-0 deficit for a 7-6 win over Morrill Post on Thursday.
The Oakland-based team (20-6) reached Hillier for two runs in the top of the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Dexter and an RBI single by Joe LeClair, then tied the game an inning later on an RBI single by Ben Frazee.
Post 51 (20-6) 000 000 210 0 — 3
Coffee News (17-8) 100 200 000 1 — 4
Godin, Pooler (5), Warren (8), Dexter (10) and Gettig; Hillier, DeLaite (8) and Huston
