STANDISH — There weren’t many mistakes during the regular season. Unfortunately for the Richmond baseball team, the bobbles, errant throws and wrong decisions were saving themselves for the worst possible time.
The Bobcats were hamstrung by one miscue after another in the Class D South championship game, committing five errors in what became a 6-2 defeat to two-time defending champion and top-seed Searsport at St. Joseph’s College.
The season’s over at 16-3 for Richmond, coming to an end in a game coach Ryan Gardner said looked nothing like all those victories.
“We did the things we don’t usually do today,” he said. “We usually go deep in counts, we were first-pitch swinging today. We don’t make that many errors, and usually we’ve got our pitchers’ backs. And we didn’t today.”
As important as the physical errors to the final result were the mental ones, as Richmond’s decision-making robbed it of chances to escape Searsport (16-3) rallies unscathed.
“I think this team is a team that can beat any team on any given night,” starting pitcher Zach Small said. “And we’re also a team that can lose to any team on any given night, just because there are some days when we show up mentally and some games when we don’t. Today’s one of those games, unfortunately, where we didn’t show up mentally.”
The backbreaker came in the bottom of the fourth, with Richmond trailing 2-1 and looking to wiggle out of a one-out, bases-loaded jam. Small struck out Daegan Moody, then got Isaiah Runci to hit a high chopper down toward first base.
First baseman Danny Stewart ran up to field the ball, but saw that Runci had made it farther up the line than he anticipated. Stewart tried to race Runci to first but the runner was ruled safe, and Mitchell Philbrick and Liam MacMillan scored to give Searsport a 4-1 advantage on what should have been the final out of the inning. A balk immediately after the play made it 5-1 Vikings.
“It was kind of a bang-bang play,” Stewart said. “It’s kind of an awkward play to make. We’re all around the ball, and then there’s no way to cover first. I should have tagged him, I just didn’t want to miss him.”
Searsport went ahead 6-1 in the sixth on a pair of errors at shortstop. For Gardner, whose team had conquered one opponent after another with its own unrelenting and aggressive style, Tuesday night was like looking in a mirror.
“They had the formula today,” Gardner said. “They put the ball in play, they ran the bases well, they put pressure on us and we didn’t rise to the occasion.”
Searsport took a 1-0 lead in the second when Philbrick doubled and scored on MacMillan’s single, but the Bobcats answered in their next at-bat. Small boomed a two-out triple to deep right-center field, then came in when Nate Kendrick dropped a single to right field.
At that point, Small said, the Bobcats had the momentum. But the Vikings didn’t let them keep it for long.
“Confidence-wise, I thought the game had changed,” he said. “I thought we were going to create some momentum and take the game over, but unfortunately that’s not what happened.”
Searsport took the lead back for good in the bottom half of the third, with Barrett Grant getting on by an error, making his way to third and coming home with two outs on a botched pickoff attempt.
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