LEWISTON — Lewiston scored three runs in the sixth inning Friday and held on for a 5-3 victory against York, setting up a deciding game for the Little League baseball state championship for 11-and-12-year-olds at Giroux Field.
The teams, who also played a 5-3 game earlier in the tournament – York won that one – will meet for the final time at 10 a.m. Saturday with the winner advancing to the New England regional at Bristol, Connecticut.
Lewiston’s three-run sixth broke a 2-2 tie. After York starter Alex Taylor finished his outing by striking out Joe Dube — who opened the scoring with a first-inning solo home run — Lewiston greeted reliever Parker Murch with three runs on three hits over five pitches.
“I had a lot of confidence in Parker Murch coming in. He throws pretty good heat. … I ran out of pitches with (Taylor) so I had to bring (Parker) in to close it out,” York Manager Ed Gullison said. “(Lewiston hitters) like the fastball, apparently.”
Jeffrey Randall faced Murch with one on and two outs, and sent the first pitch through the left side of the infield for a single that sent Ethan Blue to second base. Michael Caron then drove in two runs with a triple inside the first-base line.
“The whole game we were telling (Caron) that because he’s had tendencies of dipping his shoulder, hit the fly ball to right,” Lewiston Manager Jim Caron said. “I said, ‘Just keep your head still, go back, hit the ball flat, we’ll be good,’ and it worked. I’m proud of him.”
Mason Laflamme followed with a single through the infield to score Caron and make it 5-2.
Caron took the mound in the bottom of the sixth — his fourth inning after Ethan Pelletier allowed two runs on two hits in the first two innings — and quickly got two outs, including leaping back to catch a pop fly for the first out. An error followed by three straight walks drove in a run to make it 5-3.
Caron then got Jack Joyce to ground to short to end it.
“We were rolling and then we made it interesting on ourselves,” Jim Caron said. “But this team is very, very tight, and they have each other’s back.”
Michael Caron didn’t allow a hit but did walk six batters to go with five strikeouts. He finished with 86 pitches.
“Now we’re both in the same situation. It’s an even match,” Brody Gullison of Lewiston said. “When you’re running a state tournament I don’t think you could ask for anything better. You want two really good teams.”
The teams were evenly matched through five innings, after Dube’s first-inning homer was followed by a Randall double and a Michael Caron RBI single in the first. York answered in the second with a bases-loaded double from Murch, who drove home Ryan Cummins and Jon Jacobsohn.
Gullison said Taylor was “a little nervous starting off the game” and missed on the pitch that Dube sent out of the park, but he recovered to scatter eight hits in 5 2/3 innings, striking out four and walking two.
Lewiston left the bases loaded in the second and York did the same in the third.
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