SOUTH CHINA – June softball has arrived, meaning there’s no guarantee anybody will score until July.

Erskine Academy and Oak Hill High School reasoned that it was a fine afternoon, and evening, to play two on Monday. Heck, they might have played three, if the conditions dictated and hunger, darkness or the desperate need to get home and study for finals hadn’t intervened.

The Eagles saved everyone sweating in a uniform or sitting nervously in a lawn chair from wondering how much longer they could hold out, winning 1-0 in fluky fashion in the bottom of the 14th inning.

Both Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference teams are 10-5 as they jockey for prime playoff position in their section of Class B – Oak Hill in the West, Erskine out East. Every moment of this 2-hour, 40-minute epic felt like an elimination game.

Ashley Richardson’s first hit of the game in six plate appearances dropped perilously between three converging Oak Hill fielders behind second base. Pinch-runner Cathy Bachelder, on by virtue of Sam Morse’s single, alertly rounded the bag and booked it for third with two out.

Oak Hill’s throw sailed to the catch fence in front of the Erskine dugout, and the Raiders’ attempt to nab Bachelder at the plate was on the mark but a smidgen late.

“At that point,” said Oak Hill coach Julie Boucher, “somebody’s got to take charge of the ball.”

Amazingly, Bachelder was the first runner all day to safely surpass second base.

Morse, a sophomore, and freshman counterpart Lauren Hall were equally brilliant on the hill. Together, they struck out 21 (two-thirds of those by Morse) and allowed a combined 11 hits.

“She’s a gamer,” Erskine coach Mike Soule said of his hurler. “She just went 10 innings last week in another tough one against Maranacook. We lost that one. She was determined not to let this one get away.”

Hall held Erskine hitless from the ninth inning until Morse’s single to right field with one out in the 14th. Morse did her best work on the front end, surrendering only Cadie Rodrigue’s fifth-inning double through the first seven frames.

They unleashed 321 total pitches.

“She’s got dedication and heart,” Boucher said of Hall, a rare newcomer on an Oak Hill team with six seniors. “I’m so proud of her. She pitched well enough to win.”

Oak Hill believed that it should have escaped the 14th inning unharmed after catcher Becca Roberts’ throw to Sarah Albert appeared to pick off Bachelder at first.

The base umpire initially signaled out before determining that Albert dropped the ball.

“She held on long enough in my book, and look what happened. That was the winning run,” Boucher said. “I hope he goes home and thinks about that one.”

Deidra Dubuc delivered two extra-inning singles for Oak Hill, which concludes its regular season at home Wednesday against Lincoln Academy.