There was no way Ellsworth baseball coach Dan Curtis was going to try to stop Kyle Kenny at third base.
The senior had just clocked a game-changing hit to deep center field in the Class B North regional championship Tuesday night. His timely swing in the bottom of the sixth inning had already given the Eagles the lead, and Kenny was ready to add to it.
“I didn’t even throw a signal up, I knew he was going,” Curtis said. “I said, ‘We’re gonna see how fast he is.’”
Curtis called the swing from center fielder Kenny “a big hit by a senior in a big spot.”
That big hit ended up being a three-run inside the park home run. And it gave Ellsworth an 8-5 lead that would propel them into the state championship game.
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Kenny said after the Ellsworth win it “was basically a blur” as he ran around the bases for that home run. He was feeling “really tired” after the effort and called it “the best feeling ever” to be able to help send the Eagles through to Saturday’s Class B state championship game.
Kenny had stepped up to the plate with the game tied at 5-5 and two runners on base. No. 2 Ellsworth was looking to cap a dramatic comeback against the No. 5 upstart squad from Hermon, which had already downed No. 1 Cony in the previous round of the playoffs.
Hermon had jumped out to a 5-0 lead before Ellsworth clawed back. Ellsworth scored two runs in the fourth inning, three in the fifth, and then the final three off Kenny’s bat in the sixth.
“Hermon’s a great team,” Curtis said afterward, noting that the teams split their two regular season matchups. “We knew it was going to be a tough game.”
In the midst of that gutsy comeback, once Ellsworth had leveled the game at five, Curtis had huddled his team together outside the dugout.
“Don’t you give an inch,” he implored his team. And they listened.
Those three runs in the sixth courtesy of Kenny sent Ellsworth fans into a frenzy and sent the Ellsworth team into Saturday’s Class B state championship against Greely of Cumberland.
“It’s nice to see kids compete and be tough, and not give up on themselves. Because we could have easily done that,” Curtis said.
Ellsworth and Greely play at 1 p.m. Saturday at the University of Maine in Orono. The winner will go home with the Class B state title.
