BANGOR — Bangor High School senior pitcher Emily Reilly said her team has been focusing on delivering two-out hits this season.
“We’ve been saying, ‘Two outs, so what,’” said Reilly after her Rams scored eight two-out runs to beat Oxford Hills of South Paris 10-2 in a battle of the top two teams in the Eastern Maine Class A Heal points standings on Friday.
“This game, we really put that into play,” added Reilly, whose double broke a 2-2 tie in a four-run fifth-inning rally that erased a 2-1 deficit. She also had a run-scoring single in the five-run sixth inning that sewed up Bangor’s 10th win in 11 games.
Bangor, which expanded its lead atop the Heal Points standings, has won four in a row and scored 10 or more runs in all four games. Oxford Hills fell to 9-2 after having its five-game winning streak snapped.
“That has been our mantra all year,” said Bangor coach Don Stanhope. “We keep a stat on what we do with two strikes and what we do with two outs — how many base-runners we get with two outs.
“It goes to their discipline. Not to get lunging at things or trying to hit things out of their zone,” Stanhope added.
“We’ve been working on that, particularly recently. When you have two strikes or two outs, you can’t let that get into your head. You have to focus on what’s happening right then,” said senior first baseman Cordelia Stewart, who had two singles and a RBI.
Bangor had gone one for 10 with players on base through the first four innings but went nine for 12 in the fifth and sixth innings.
“It was eventually going to come. I think that’s a sign of maturity,” said Stanhope.
Sydni Cosgrove started the fifth-inning rally with a line drive single off the glove of Oxford Hills shortstop Madison LeBlond, who had robbed Cosgrove with nice plays off her line drives in her first two at-bats.
She stole second and scored the tying run on Stewart’s ground ball single to center.
“The focus was to hit the ball up the middle,” said Stewart.
Reilly then belted a long opposite-field double over right fielder Hannah Kenney’s head to deliver Stewart.
Kylie Cunningham followed with a sharp RBI single to center and, after a wild pitch, Lilli Wiseman grounded a two-run single to left.
Bangor scored its five sixth-inning runs after having two outs and nobody on.
The Rams strung together six consecutive singles by Gilmore, Stewart, Sarah Bragg (RBI), Reilly (RBI), Cunningham (2 RBIs) and Wiseman (RBI).
“This was really a team effort,” said Wiseman, who had three singles and two RBIs. “Oxford Hills is definitely a really good team. They were No. 2, so we were definitely prepared for this.”
Reilly (5-0) pitched a complete game to pick up her the win. The right-hander tossed a three-hitter with two strikeouts and one walk. One of the runs was unearned. She threw 75 pitches, 50 for strikes.
“She was pretty good. She had a lot of movement on the ball so when we hit it, it didn’t go far,” said Oxford Hills junior pitcher Jody Akers, who absorbed her first loss after six wins.
Cunningham had three singles and three RBIs.
Reilly doubled and singled and had two RBIs, and Stewart and Bragg had two singles and an RBI apiece in Bangor’s 14-hit attack.
Erika Whitman singled and scored on Anna Piirainen’s two-out single in the second inning to give the Vikings a 2-0 lead before Abby Elliott’s sacrifice fly cut the lead in half in the bottom of the second.
Two errors and Kenney’s RBI sacrifice bunt had produced a first-inning run.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story