By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

SOUTH PARIS – Amber Millett inched to her right and then inched to her left. She gave the Old Town infielder a look that said, “Go ahead, throw it”.

Sure enough, a throw to third base sailed away.

Millett scampered home with the only run on Tuesday in a 1-0 Oxford Hills Eastern A preliminary victory.

“I rounded second and almost got caught,” said Millett. “On the bunt, we usually try to look to go to the next base because usually someone doesn’t come in and cover from left field. (Coach Cindy Goddard) told me to keep coming. I came and realized that she had the ball. So I tried to pickle it a little bit and tried to make her make the decision.”

In a game where both teams were starved for offense, the Vikings (13-4) knew they had to force the issue when Millett reached base on an error to lead off the bottom of the sixth. Molly Dow followed with a bunt. As the Indians (6-11) got Dow out at first, Millett began a dash for second.

“The reason I sent Amber was because I thought it went over the first baseman’s head,” said Goddard. “Amber was very good. She didn’t panic. She was like, I’m in a pickle now, let’s see what they’re going to do.'”

For Old Town, it was a familiar scenario. The Indians had some narrow loses against Brewer and Bangor during the regular season.

“We had our chances with pretty good teams,” said Old Town coach Mike Thurston, who was coaching his last game with the Indians. “We just couldn’t push that run across and just couldn’t stay away from that one fatal error.”

The Indians had the better offensive chances and left six runners on base. Old Town had runners on second and third in each of the first two innings and couldn’t score. The Indians also had Amy McFalls and Amanda Littlefield single in the sixth, but second baseman Annie Foster turned a line drive into a double play that ended the inning.

“We had as many opportunities to score and just didn’t capitalize,” said Thurston. “When you don’t score any runs, you don’t come out on the winning end.”

“They had more opportunities than we did to score,” said Goddard. “I didn’t think we hit well at all. I think we were going to because during pregame we were hitting pretty well.”