BREWER — Hermon pitcher Karli Theberge slapped her thigh with her glove, then delivered. The pitches were there, and then they weren’t. They came faster or slower — and with more spin than the Gardiner batters were expecting.
“Her change-up was working excellent,” Hermon catcher Shaniah Haskell said, “and her spins — all of her drop curves, her screwball, they were working perfectly.”
The upshot was that top-seeded Gardiner, one of the better hitting teams in the state, couldn’t make solid contact all game. Theberge was in control as No. 3 Hermon took a 6-1 victory in the Eastern B softball final Wednesday afternoon at Coffin Field.
“Gardiner did knock us out of the playoffs last year so we knew a little bit about them,” Theberge said. “I knew they were a great-hitting team, so I was just focused on throwing the ball, hitting my spots, and I knew my defense was going to be there to back me up.”
Hermon (17-2) plays Wells in the Class B final at 4 p.m., Saturday, in Brewer. Gardiner, which reached the Eastern B final for the second year in a row, finishes at 18-1.
While Theberge tied up the Tigers, the Hermon batters found the gaps. Hermon went down 1-2-3 in the top of the first, but loaded the bases with nobody out in the second on two walks and Haskell’s bunt single that a Gardiner player grabbed as it was going foul. Lexey MacManus then lined a hard single to center for one run, and a wild pitch made it 2-0.
It was clear the Tigers were going to have to work for their runs, and that’s what they did in the bottom of the second. With one out, Lauren Chadwick singled through the left side and moved to second on a wild pitch. Kristal Smith dropped a single into left field, and Chadwick scored on Ellie Luken’s groundout.
With two out, courtesy runner Hope Dube-Grenier on third and the score 2-1, Nicole Chadwick laid down a bunt. Haskell grabbed it and threw to first but second baseman Claire Petersen sno-coned the ball and finally lost it on a collision with Chadwick at first base. The umpires originally ruled Chadwick safe as Dube-Grenier scored, but then reversed their call, and Hermon maintained its 2-1 lead.
“I knew it wasn’t going to go foul, and my third baseman wasn’t there yet, so I just chucked it,” Haskell said. “I saw our second baseman, Claire, go to catch it, but then all of a sudden, I see this girl plow into her. I had a bad angle at it, so it was good that my coach asked to change the call so that they didn’t get the run.”
In the Hermon third, Allessa Oakes reached on a two-out error, and Haskell followed with a booming double to deep left to make it 3-1. The Hawks tacked on two more runs in the fourth on a bunt single by Petersen, an RBI single by Oakes, and Sydney Addessi’s sharp double to right-center field.
“That team can hit the ball,” Gardiner coach Ginger Shaw said. “Plain and simple — they ripped the ball today. When I had seen them previously, they had not hit the ball that hard. They just hit wherever we weren’t today.”
“Our whole lineup one through nine has really produced this year, and that’s what’s made the difference,” Hermon coach Megan McCrum said.
Gardiner has its last three baserunners of the game in the fourth inning. After Lauren Chadwick reached on a dropped popup with two out, Smith blooped one past Theberge for a single. When Ellie Luken walked on five pitches, the Tigers had the bases loaded, but Theberge induced a groundout to end the inning, then retired the last nine batters — seven on groundouts — to end the game.
Nicole Chadwick, Brittany Rollins, and Katelyn Boyington are the only Gardiner players who have graduated. The Tigers are 35-3 over the past two seasons.
“I feel like we left some things on the table — like today, we could have done some things a little differently,” Shaw said. “All in all, I have to be pleased with the season that we had. We played some tremendous ball. The girls never gave up. They kept working hard every day in practice, every game. We just fell a little short today.”
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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