BANGOR, Maine — The Coffee News Comrades accomplished something Sunday they hadn’t done while rolling to the 2014 and 2015 American Legion baseball state title — win the Zone 1 championship.
Andrew Hillier hit a pair of RBI doubles and Brian Peirce pitched five innings of scoreless relief Sunday as second-ranked Coffee News of Bangor defeated No. 4 Post 16 of Skowhegan 5-2 in the zone final at Husson University.
It marked the first time since 2012 that the Comrades won the Zone 1 championship, having finished second to Brewer in 2013 and 2014 and to Post 51 of Oakland last summer.
But Coffee News will be no stranger at the state American Legion tournament that begins Wednesday at the Capitol Area Recreation Association complex in Augusta. The Bangor High School-based team has now qualified for that event 14 times in the last 15 years.
“First of all, Bangor is rich in baseball tradition, there have been a lot of great coaches and great players and a lot of great community members who have volunteered from tee-ball and Farm League right up through Legion,” said Coffee News head coach Dave Morris, who also is an assistant coach for the three-time defending Class A championship team from Bangor High School. “We’re just fortunate to reap these things at the top.
“There are a lot of people who are responsible and deserve the credit for that success, but most of all it’s the kids and the kind of commitment they make, that’s really where it starts. They’re committed, they like playing baseball and they like competing. You really can’t take that for granted, but that’s where it starts.”
Coffee News (18-5) will open state tournament play at 10 a.m. Wednesday against Zone 3 runner-up Coastal Landscape of Portland, which includes players from Cheverus and Deering high schools.
Skowhegan (16-10) also qualified for the state tournament and will face Zone 3 champion Yankee Ford of South Portland in its opener at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“I’m very proud of these boys,” said Skowhegan coach Roger Stinson, whose team finished 3-2 in the zone tournament after advancing from last Thursday’s play-in round. “They take adversity and kind of laugh at it.
“This is a group of kids from four schools [Skowhegan, Madison, Carrabec of North Anson and Valley of Bingham] who have really come together. You’d never know they’re from four different schools.”
Bangor finished 3-0 in the zone tournament, anchored by a pitching staff that yielded just two runs over its last 18 innings after outlasting Skowhegan 7-6 with a ninth-inning rally in their earlier tournament matchup Friday.
Comrades’ starter Nick Cowperthwaite worked the first four innings of the rematch, allowing two unearned runs on four hits before giving way to Peirce, who yielded just one hit while striking out four batters and walking two the rest of the way.
The Coffee News pitchers were backed by strong defense, particularly in the outfield where center fielder Ryan Brookings made two hit-robbing catches and left fielder Tyler Parke added a running catch on a ball headed down the line.
Yet Skowhegan took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third. Mike Berry hit a leadoff single to left and reached third when Chase Malloy grounded a two-out single to right. Adam Turcotte then hit a line drive that was ruled an error when it popped out of the glove of Coffee News’ second baseman Peter Kemble, and Cody Laweryson followed by grounding a two-run single to left field.
Coffee News tied the game with three straight two-out hits in the bottom of the inning. Kemble singled to right-center — the first of his three hits in the game — and scored when Hillier one-hopped the fence with his first double to deep left field.
Derek Fournier singled to center to drive home Hillier.
Similar two-out magic gave Coffee News the lead in the fifth as Kemble reached on an infield hit and Hillier lined another one-hopper off the fence in left to provide the Comrades a 3-2 edge.
“They were middle in, just the pitches I was looking for,” said Hillier of his two-double day. “I ripped them and fortunately they got over the [left fielder’s] head.”
Ben Crichton’s inside-the-park home run with two outs in the eighth ignited a two-run Coffee News uprising.
Crichton lined the ball down the left-field line just past a diving Skowhegan outfielder, and as the ball kept rolling toward the fence Crichton kept running all the way home to make it a 4-2 game.
Peirce then reached on an infield hit, stole second and scored on Parke’s pop double to left.
Skowhegan 002 000 000 — 2 5 1
Coffee News 002 010 02x — 5 10 2
W. Stinson, Emery (6) and Berry; Cowperthwaite, Peirce (5) and Fournier
