FAIRFIELD — Dylan Coombs knew he was going to bunt. Chris Dow knew he was going to take off from third base as soon as Coombs made contact. With the winning run on third base in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Bulldogs had to execute.

“We had the right two kids in that situation, to bunt and run, actually,” Lawrence High School baseball coach Rusty Mercier said.

The pitch from Maranacook’s Alex Trafton was high and inside, but Coombs was able to lay the bunt down the third base line. Dow charged from third base, sliding safely without a throw to give the Bulldogs a 6-5, extra inning Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference win. Lawrence improved to 3-2, while Maranacook dropped to 3-1.

The nine hitter in the Bulldogs lineup, Coombs said he wasn’t worried about getting the bunt down.

“We’ve been practicing it,” said Coombs, who also hit a three-run double for Lawrence in the fourth inning.

Dow led off the bottom of the eighth with a single. With Dow running on the pitch, Nate Bickford hit a sacrifice bunt down the third base line. The combination of Dow running on the pitch and Maranacook reacting slowly to cover third allowed Dow to get in scoring position.

“Chris made a nice read, he got a good secondary (lead) and went when the ball went down. Dylan did a great job,” Mercier said.

“It’s a tough play to defend. The pitch was up and in on (Coombs). The kid did amazing job to get that down,” Maranacook coach Eric Brown added.

The winning run gave the Bulldogs the lead for just the second time. Lawrence took a brief 5-4 lead in the fifth when Nick Grard scored on a throwing error by Black Bears pitcher Glen Guerette. With Grard on third and Nick Robertson on first base with two outs, Robertson tried to get caught in a run down long enough for Grard to score the go-ahead run. Guerette’s initial throw to second base was low and skipped into center field, allowing Grard to score and Robertson to remain safely at first.

“We’re doing it when the pitcher gets to his set. Sometimes the pitcher might balk. He actually handled it well, he just made a bad throw,” Mercier said.

Maranacook tied the game in the top of the sixth when Hunter Glowa reached on an error and scored on Thomas Trafton’s single.

Grard’s run was one of four unearned runs scored by the Bulldogs. The other three came in the bottom of the fourth. Trailing 4-1, Mchenzie Steeves and Robertson led off the inning by reaching base on back-to-back errors. After two strikeouts, Bickford walked to load the bases. Coombs got down 0-2 in the count before doubling to left to clear the bases and tie the game.

“I got down 0-2, and I stayed with the at bat. (Guerette) threw a pitch right in my zone, and I swung,” Coombs said.

The three errors in the game was uncharacteristic, Brown said.

“We’d only had four errors coming into this game in three games. We made some mistakes. We looked like a team that hasn’t been able to get practice on a field that much,” Brown said.

The Black Bears had seven hits through the first four innings, but just one the rest of the way. Maranacook scored a pair of runs in the first inning on an RBI single by Duncan Rogers and a Lawrence error. Guerette’s two-run single in the third gave the Black Bears a 4-1 lead.

“I think we just got a little flat. We’re a better hitting team than what we did in the middle innings there,” Brown said.

Hayden Lee started and threw seven innings for Lawrence, striking out one with no walks. Steeves earned the win with a scoreless eighth in relief.

“(Lee) threw strikes. We didn’t defend in a couple situations, which hurt him. He’s only a sophomore, a young kid. Hayden settled in,” Mercier said.

Rogers scored a pair of runs and had two hits for Maranacook.