GARDINER — After a prolonged wait to get their playoff run started, the Gardiner softball team’s postseason ended in less than a day.

Fewer than 20 hours after its quarterfinal win, second-seeded Gardiner dropped a 1-0 decision to No. 3 Lake Region on Saturday morning in a Class B South semifinal. Laker senior Melissa Mayo tossed a four-hit shutout and delivered the game-winning RBI in the top of the sixth inning to lead Lake Region (14-4) into the program’s first regional final.

None of the current senior class for the Lakers had so much as won a single playoff game prior to Thursday’s win over Medomak Valley.

“I went up there knowing I had to do my job and be confident,” Mayo said of her sixth-inning at-bat. “I wanted to do it for my team. (The pitch) was kind of just right there, and I swung. I just knew not to swing at any of the high ones.”

Gardiner (15-3) was shut out for the first time this season.

“We just couldn’t string hits together enough to get a run in,” Gardiner coach Ryan Gero said.

With the game scoreless through five innings, Margo Tremblay drew a walk in the sixth to give the Lakers their first baserunner against Tiger hurler Rae Gilbert since the first inning. Tremblay stole second cleanly, and Mayo delivered a two-out single to right-center field to bring Tremblay home.

From there, Mayo — who had pitched mostly to contact throughout — bore down on the Tiger lineup and fanned four over the final two scoreless innings.

“She’s like that,” Lake Region head coach Shawn Rock said of Mayo, who has allowed only a single run in two playoff starts this season. “She pitches with her emotions. When her emotions are up, she’s got a few more miles an hour. When she’s upset, she does that, too. That’s not a bad quality to have.”

“I really worked off the adrenaline,” said Mayo, who finished with seven strikeouts against only one walk. “I knew I had to stay up in order to get the win.”

Gardiner had some lost opportunities to score.

Gilbert led off the second with a bullet to center that one-hopped the fence for a double, but she would soon be called out when the umpires ruled that she had illegally left the base. Gilbert likely would have scored two batters later when Dak Lovely roped a base hit up the middle.

In the third, the Tigers got a runner to scoring position with one out that they couldn’t get home, and in the sixth a leadoff walk was erased on a well-executed Lake Region pick-off play.

“We got robbed early on a bogus call,” Gero said of the second-inning miscue. “That could have been the one run we needed. I know those officials personally, and they do a great job. I just don’t agree with that decision.”

After the opening half-inning, the Lakers weren’t so sure they would ever get the run the game desperately needed.

A pair of hits and a hit batter loaded the bases for Lake Region with two outs, but the visitors were unable to score. Gilbert, who racked up 13 strikeouts for Gardiner, retired 14 straight Lakers until Tremblay’s one-out walk in the first.

Mayo’s RBI single was the first hit for the Lakers since her own single to right with one-out in the first.

“We’ve never been in this position before, but this team plays like that,” Rock said of the Lakers’ propensity for not buckling under pressure. “We had games last year against a rival where they didn’t even realize they won, and at the end of the game you had to tell them, ‘You guys know you won, right?’ Having a little bit of that is not a bad thing in these big games.”

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

‘I wish we could hit’: Some call for change in Maine’s physicality difference between girls, boys lacrosse

Next »

Softball: Skowhegan ousts Messalonskee to return to Class A North title game