The Bangor Babes, in their first season in the Greater Northeast Collegiate Baseball League, captured the league playoff title by virtue of a 4-2 win over fellow newcomer Old Orchard Beach at The Ballpark in OOB on Wednesday night.
It was the deciding game in their best-of-three series.
Head coach Trevor DeLaite’s Babes, who were also the regular season winners with their 14-4 record, had won the opener 10-9 on Sunday before dropping a 7-3 decision to the second-seeded Bugs on Tuesday.
Bangor concluded a 17-5 campaign while OOB finished at 19-8 including a 17-6 regular season mark.
It was the 10th meeting of the season between the two with Bangor winning the first four regular season games and the Bugs taking the next three leading up to the playoff championship series.
The Babes broke a 2-2 tie with two runs in the bottom of the third inning and starter Brady Harvie and relievers Brian Riley and Alex Smith shut out the Bugs the rest of the way.
Old Orchard Beach had scored its two runs in the top of the third off Harvie.
Harvie just graduated from Windham High School, Riley is from Portland and pitches at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and Smith was a senior at Husson University in Bangor and was 5-1 with a 3.11 earned-run average in helping the Eagles reach the championship game in an NCAA Division III regional for the first time in school history.
Smith, who is from Northborough, Massachusetts, pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to earn the save.
Shortstop Liam O’Neal from Tenants Harbor, who played for the NCAA Division II University of Bridgeport’s Purple Knights this spring and will be a junior this fall, was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
He had five hits in the three-game series, including two hits on Wednesday and a three-run homer and a double in Sunday’s opener. He also collected three hits in the 13-4 semifinal win over Augusta.
O’Neal started the decisive third-inning rally with a single and Old Town’s Matt Seymour was hit by a pitch. Both scored on a Tyler Annis base hit and an outfield error on the play. Skowhegan’s Annis was a freshman at the University of Maine this past spring.
Bangor took a 2-0 lead in the second on a two-run single by Belfast’s Jason Bartlett after Griffin Ruffner had been hit by a pitch and Annis singled and stole second.
Old Orchard Beach tied it in the third on singles by Chris Balzano, Conor Moriarty, Jack LeBlond and Cam Seymour. Seymour plated both runs.
Annis and Bartlett joined O’Neal with a pair of base hits apiece.
Chris Cimino stroked a pair of doubles for the Bugs and Moriarty had a pair of singles.
