WALES — People complain about the weather all the time. But sometimes, it does you a favor.

Because of a rainout, Oak Hill played at Maine Central Institute the day before playing Nokomis. That meant Nokomis softball coach JD McLellan had a short drive to Pittsfield to watch Oak Hill play and get a complete scouting report.

Still, knowing how to pitch is only useful if the pitcher hits her spots. Nokomis pitcher Sara Packard did that on Thursday afternoon, striking out a career-high 13 batters as the Warriors rolled to a 12-3 victory.

“It made a difference, scouting,” McLellan said. “I got to see what their batters did. I got a pocketful of notes, and we did everything on the notes.”

Packard allowed only three hits, and retired the final 11 batters she faced. She threw only 95 pitches, and 68 of those were strikes.

“She was on,” McLellan said. “Her change is a sweet change. She has five different pitches, so we take the one that was working.”

Nokomis (8-3) scored nine runs before Oak Hill got through its batting order to all but wrap up the game by the third inning.

“We just came out flat, and they came out firing,” Oak Hill coach Allyson Collins said. “Their pitcher had commanding pitches. She just had a lot of movement on the ball, and only a couple hitters could catch up to her.”

Nokomis led 3-0 after two innings with the help of RBI singles by Becky Orcutt and Lacey Kent-Webber and a booming triple to left field by Taylor Lovley. Oak Hill (7-5) got two runs back in the bottom of the second. Kortni Michaud struck out but reached first when the ball got away. One out later, Alexis Priest ripped a shot to dead center field. Priest got a triple and scored on a throwing error to make it 3-2.

At that point, the game could have gone either way. The Warriors, who were coming off a 15-3 loss to Oceanside on Monday, bounced back with six runs in the top of the third. Nokomis drew four walks in the inning, the crushing blow a two-out, two-run single by Megan Perry that took the score from 7-2 to 9-2.

“We didn’t play up to our greatest against Oceanside — they’re a good team,” Packard said. “So we wanted to come out strong and get the win today and be ready for the rest of the season, and get on a winning streak.”

Oak Hill had one more shot, loading the bases with nobody out in the fourth before Packard got out of the jam with only one run. Nokomis had 11 hits on the day, and Lovley, Kent-Webber, Becca Boyce and Sierra Fortin had two apiece. Freshman Meaghan Lovley got into the act with a triple to center field in the sixth inning.

The Raiders have been in this position before and it would be tough to question their resiliency. Oak Hill was no-hit by Maranacook, lost by 12 runs to Gardiner and fell 10-3 to Medomak Valley. Each time, the Raiders followed up with a win in their next game. If they could do that again today against Oceanside (9-1), it would mean a bundle of Heal points.

“Big game against Oceanside,” Collins said. “Hopefully, they’ll just pick their heads up and move on.  I think that’s the best thing that we can do is just learn from our mistakes here, pick up and go.”

Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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