AUGUSTA — A year ago, Arika Brochu was finishing up her middle school softball career. Wednesday, she helped the Cony High School softball team to an unbeaten regular season.

The freshman pitcher held Bangor to two hits and gave up an unearned run in Cony’s 6-1 victory at Cony Family Field. Brochu also scored two runs to go with a pair of hits and an RBI.

Additional Photos

AND THE RACE IS ON: After putting down a bunt, Cony High School’s Alyssa Brochu races down the first base line to try and beat out a throw by Bangor High School’s Kamdra Prendergast, right, on Wednesday in Augusta. Photo by Jeff Pouland

“As a freshman it was the best thing that could ever happen to me,” said Brochu, who struck out 10 and didn’t issue a walk. “Just to be able to play with my sister (Alyssa) is excellent, too. It’s amazing.”

Cony scored three runs in the third inning, two in the fourth and one in the fifth in running its record to 16-0. The Rams also finished unbeaten in the regular season in 2009. They’ll draw the top seed in next week’s Eastern Maine Class A tournament as well as this Saturday’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference four-team championship series.

There was nothing easy about Wednesday’s win despite the final score. The Rams managed just five hits, committed three errors and survived a crazy inning in which Bangor saw two of its runs wiped off the scoreboard. In the process, Bangor coach Doug Stanhope was ejected from the game.

It all happened in the fifth inning when Cony committed three errors. With two outs and a run already in for Bangor (11-5), June Candland hit a ground ball to third base. The throw from Olivia Deeves to Sonja Morse at first drew Morse off the bag but Candland was called out by umpire Rick Bates. In the meantime, two Bangor runs crossed the plate, the second a close play in which Casey Modery was ruled safe.

Bates then approached home plate umpire Randy Evans and after some discussion, Candland was called safe at first. This brought Cony coach Rocky Gaslin and his assistants out of the dugout. The call stood but the runners were sent back to their bases since the original out call ended the inning.

“He called her out, then he called her safe,” Gaslin said. “So the runners should have to go back. That’s in the rule book.”

Stanhope didn’t see it that way and, after a brief discussion, he was thrown out of the game by Evans.

“It was an emotional inning for a lot of folks and I just happened to come in at the tail end of it,” Stanhope said. “I got the brunt of it. That happens. It seemed like they compounded some things, but they saw what they saw. They make the decisions and we move on.”

Cony took advantage of the wildness of Bangor starter Cordelia Stewart. In the third inning, Cecelia Fuller drew a walk, advanced on a wild pitch and scored on Brochu’s double to the base of the fence in left center. Brochu would score on a wild pitch and Nicole Rugan, who walked, later scored when she escaped a rundown between third and home.

“I was nervous,” said Rugan, who added an RBI single in the fourth. “I don’t know why I was nervous but today I was more nervous than anything. It was like the senior game, we hadn’t played them before and we knew they were going to be tough.”

Morse, who has most of Cony’s games on the mound, came on in the seventh but was lifted and replaced by Brochu after getting a strikeout and walking three straight batters to load the bases. Brochu escaped the jam by striking out the final two batters.

“I didn’t feel confident up there because I hadn’t warmed up,” Morse said. “Arika obviously threw a great game so she should finish it.”

Gary Hawkins — 621-5638

ghawkins@centralmaine.com

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