AUGUSTA — A 74-game regular-season unbeaten streak has produced plenty of highlights and high seedings for the Scarborough High School softball program.
But the Red Storm hadn’t been able to convert such momentum into similar postseason dominance since the early days of that streak, when Scarborough topped Skowhegan to capture the 2013 Class A state championship.
Pitcher Lily Volk, one of only three seniors on this year’s team, was determined to halt that subsequent run of playoff heartbreak — which included the one-hitter she threw during a 1-0 loss to Messalonskee of Oakland in the 2015 state final.
Volk delivered in a big way Saturday afternoon, pitching a two-hitter as coach Tom Griffin’s club capped off an undefeated spring with a 3-0 victory over Skowhegan in the gold-glove game at Cony High School.
Junior right fielder Chloe Griffin, the coach’s niece, complemented Volk’s work on the mound with the key at-bat of the game. He hit a two-out, two-run single to center in the top of the fourth inning that gave the Red Storm all the offense they needed to secure the program’s sixth state title overall, their fifth in Class A.
Scarborough finished its season at 20-0, while a Skowhegan club with no seniors and just four juniors concluded its spring at 17-3.
Coach Lee Johnson’s Indians were vying for their first state crown since 2014 while playing in the final game for the fourth time in five years.
Volk, who will play at the University of Maine next season, controlled the North region champions throughout the contest with a heavy fastball and a mix of pitches. The right-hander struck out 13 while walking one and hitting a batter during an 86-pitch effort that featured 68 strikes.
Volk went to one three-ball count during the game and had just one other two-ball count as she continually pitched ahead of the Skowhegan batters and showed little signs of tiring during the late innings. Volk recorded nine of her team’s last 11 outs by strikeout.
The Indians’ only hits were a 10-foot bunt that refused to go foul along the third-base line just beyond the edge of the batter’s box by Annie Cook in the bottom of the third inning and a leadoff single to right by Alyssa Everett in the sixth.
Cook, who was sacrificed to second base by Everett after her hit, was the lone Skowhegan baserunner to reach second base.
Scarborough needed a dominant pitching effort from Volk because Skowhegan junior Ashely Alward was equally stingy for much of the contest.
Alward recorded six strikeouts and stranded four Scarborough baserunners in scoring position as Skowhegan played the Red Storm to a scoreless stalemate through three innings.
Scarborough finally broke through in the top of the fourth. Sam Carreiro led off by reaching when the Skowhegan center fielder couldn’t handle her sinking line drive. Lindsey Kelley’s bunt single put runners on first and second with nobody out.
Hanna Ricker pushed an opposite-field single to left with one out to load the bases, and after Alward struck out the next batter Griffin hit a 2-1 pitch for a hard ground single up the middle that plated both Carreiro and Kelley.
Scarborough scored its final run all at once in the top of the seventh as freshman Bella Dickinson tripled to the fence in right field and scored on the play after an errant Skowhegan relay throw toward third base.
Volk and Ricker were the game’s lone repeat hitters, each with two singles.
Alward struck out nine batters and walked two in a complete-game pitching effort for Skowhegan.
Softball ball isolated on white background
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story