FARMINGDALE — Not since the pre-COVID days has any pitcher been able to do anything like this against the Hall-Dale softball team.

Mia Coots, though, isn’t like most pitchers.

Now a senior at Nokomis, Coots had just finished her seventh-grade year on June 8, 2019, the last time Hall-Dale lost a game. On Saturday, she helped bring an end to the Bulldogs’ 62-game winning streak, pitching a complete-game two hitter in a 6-0 Warriors victory.

“I go out there knowing that I’m the best and that they have to beat me,” Coots said. “They were scared coming into this game to beat me and my teammates, so I went in there and had that confidence, and they went in there with the attitude of, ‘Wow, we have to face Mia today.’”

Coots, the two-time reigning Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B North Player of the Year, struck out 11 batters in the win. She added two hits and two RBIs at the plate for the Warriors, who also got a two-run home run and a double from Jenna Sawtelle as they tagged the Bulldogs for five unearned runs.

At first, the opening inning didn’t look like it would produce much for Nokomis (8-2). After Hallie Coots walked to begin the game, Hall-Dale’s Ashlynn Donahue struck out Raegan King and snagged a line drive by Addison Hawthorne to bring Sydney King to the plate with two outs.

An error in left field, though, would put King at second and Hallie Coots at third. The younger Coots then scored on a passed ball before her older sister singled in King. Then, Sawtelle belted a shot to left field that stayed fair by a matter of inches to make it a 4-0 ballgame.

“You look at the six runs we gave up, (all but one) of them were unearned,” said Hall-Dale head coach Steve Acedo. “We made some mistakes, and they took advantage of them, so you could look at it that way, but even if it had been just a 1-0 game, we just couldn’t get our bats going today.”

Coots was a big reason for that. She sailed through the first two innings with Hall-Dale’s only runner in those frames reaching on an error. The Bulldogs (6-1) got infield singles from Torie Tibbetts and Lucy Gray in the third and fourth innings, respectively, but could not find a way past the Nokomis ace.

Nokomis failed to score in the top of the fifth despite loading the bases with one out, but Coots then struck out the side in the bottom half before fanning two more in the sixth. The Warriors then added a pair of insurance runs in the seventh before Coots retired the side to end Hall-Dale’s run.

“They’re really good; there’s a reason they’ve won 62 games in a row,” Coots said of Hall-Dale’s feat. “We had the mentality going into this game (knowing) that they’ve been on a really good streak, but all good things must come to an end, and we wanted to be the ones to end it.”

Donahue allowed just the one unearned run for Hall-Dale, striking out 10 in a fairly impressive performance of her own in the circle. The Bulldogs’ loss marked the end of the third-longest winning streak in Maine high school softball history, behind only Richmond from 2013-17 (88) and Scarborough from 2017-21 (66).

Acedo, though, has consistently maintained that the streak hasn’t been Hall-Dale’s main focus. Instead, it’s been a byproduct of the success the Bulldogs have had, success that will feel no less a month or so from now if his team can claim a fourth consecutive Class C state championship.

“It’s fun to talk about, and it’s impressive to win that many games in a row — the kids earned every single one of them — but this isn’t the end of the season,” Acedo. “We still have all of our goals in front of us. We played a good team today, and they showed us what we need to work on to get ready for the playoffs.”

The victory was the ninth in the past 10 games for the Warriors, whose only loss during that span came April 29 against perennial Class A North powerhouse Skowhegan. It also vaulted Nokomis, the reigning champion in Class B North, to the top of the standings.

“The girls knew what was going on with their streak, but the (Heal) points were what they were really focused on,” said Nokomis head coach J.D. McLellan. “We have some more tough games coming up, so this one sets us up really well for the rest of the season.”