GORHAM — Its school is officially closing after 84 years, but the St. Dominic Academy baseball team lives on for four more days. The Saints prevailed 4-2 over Richmond in an 11-inning Class D South championship game Tuesday at the University of Southern Maine’s Ed Flaherty Field. The win sends St. Dom’s, the defending state champion, to Saturday’s state final against Bangor Christian (18-1) at the University of Maine. “What the heck inning was that? Because I lost track,” said St. Dom’s coach Bob Blackman, whose team will go for its fourth straight state title Saturday. “These guys, they just keep fighting. There was a fear of it coming to an end, but they didn’t want to let that happen.” Curtis Wheeler had four singles for St. Dom’s, which also got a double and two singles from Ben Dumais and had 12 hits overall. Dumais also was the winning pitcher, working 4 2/3 innings in relief of Logan LeClair (6 1/3 innings, seven strikeouts, one earned run). Top-seeded Richmond (18-1) got out of a jam in the first inning, as Zander Steele threw out Wheeler at third on a ground ball with no outs. Then, with runners on second and third and no outs for St. Dom’s in the second inning, pitcher Rhys Terry struck out LeClair and Brady Black before Kessel Lynn flied out to left. “Early on, I thought we let some of those opportunities get away from us, and I didn’t know if those opportunities would come back,” Blackman said. “Richmond, they’re a good team; we’re very much so (evenly matched). We just needed to catch that one break.” Second-seeded St. Dom’s (13-6) finally broke through with a run in the fifth inning, as Wheeler singled in Jacobi Apodaca. Richmond bounced back, though, taking advantage of a leadoff double by Brady Alexander, who scored on a sacrifice fly from Cody Fournier. After both pitching staffs cruised over the next five innings, St. Dom’s found itself with a major opportunity in the 11th. Singles by Nolan Cavers and Dumais and a wild pitch put both in scoring position. They scored on sacrifices by LeClair and Brady Blash. Wheeler later singled home Blash for the final run. “Their pitching was definitely stumping us for a few innings, but we were able to time them up,” Wheeler said. “We knew what we had to do and how we had to approach it, and we just executed. … We got some hard-hit balls, and we got some runs in.” Still, Richmond found a way to make St. Dom’s sweat, getting hits from Steele and Kenny Mecham to start the bottom of the 11th. Then, with the tying run on second and two outs, Dumais got Alexander to fly out to right to seal the Saints’ fourth straight regional title. St. Dom’s has won 11 straight games after a 2-6 start to the season. Much of that turnaround can be attributed to a young team gaining experience and finding its groove over the course of the season, but this season being the last go-around for the program and the school has also played a role. “We had a rough start to the season, but we’ve been able to pick it back up to become a great team,” LeClair said. “We started practicing harder, we started getting the mechanics down, and we started playing together.” Alexander, who had two of Richmond ’s four hits, took the loss after relieving Rhys Terry in the eighth inning. Terry struck out six and had a had a hit for the Bobcats. Richmond committed two errors.
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