STANDISH – It didn’t matter to Buckfield’s LeAnn Abbott that her coach wanted her to bunt down the first base line.

With one out in the bottom of the seventh inning.

With the game tied and the winning run on second.

“When I went up to the plate, I still felt that sinking feeling in my stomach,” Abbott said, “that feeling of ‘what if it goes wrong?’ But I had to put it out of my mind and just get that bunt down.”

She did.

And Buckfield won – again.

Abbott reached first as Richmond’s Eticia Brickman bobbled the throw over from the pitcher and catcher Alicia Patrie wheeled around from second base on the play to lift the Bucks to a thrilling 9-8 victory over the Bobcats.

The win capped two-time defending state champion Buckfield’s fourth consecutive Western Maine Class D softball crown at Ward Field on the campus of St. Joseph’s College on Tuesday.

“I was booking it,” Patrie said. “I had to be ready for every dropped ball, just in case, and my coach at third told me to keep going, so I did.”

Patrie turned to her teammates after she crossed the plate, and the Bucks (14-3) mobbed the sophomore catcher near the mound.

“It just felt so good,” Patrie said. “I came across the plate, and thought to myself, ‘Hallelujah, we just won this game.'”

The dropped ball at first was a familiar refrain on the afternoon for both squads. The Bucks committed four errors in the game, most of them early on, while Richmond stayed clean early, but started to feel the pressure as the game wore on.

“The throwing errors killed us,” Richmond coach Rich Coughlin said. “And when we had the chance, we couldn’t put them away.”

And the Bobcats (12-3) had their chances.

They scored a pair of runs in the first inning on three hits and an error, but stranded two runners. In the second, with two outs, Richmond loaded the bases, but couldn’t push any runs across, and in the third, after scoring three runs with only one out and putting the next runner on second, the ‘Cats stalled.

“We got ourselves into a big hole,” Buckfield coach Ken Farrington said. “I don’t know why it is we struggle so much against the bunt game like we do, but we figured it out. We knew once we cycled through our order once, we’d start to hit, too.”

The Bucks had to. Faced with a 5-1 deficit to start the bottom of the fourth, Patrie started things off with a double. Ally Martin, who had a key sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh, reached on a throwing error, and Abbott followed in kind. An Abby Bragg single cleared the bases and pulled Buckfield to within one.

Rachel Caron and Patrie scored in the fifth to give Buckfield a lead. Richmond replied in the sixth as Danica Hurley came home on an error.

The Bobcats plated a pair of runs in the top of the seventh, too, to take a two-run lead, when Leandra Martin and Danielle Bunikis each walked and scored on a Cassie Hamilton double and a Katrina Hedgpeth sac fly.

“This is so similar to games we always have with them,” Farrington said. “We both have young teams, and a lot of the game, it looked like nobody wanted to win the game.”

Melissa Taylor changed that in the bottom half of the inning, legging out a bunt and stealing second to set up the rally. Brittany Wiley hustled out an infield hit and Patrie knocked a single to send Taylor home. Wiley scored on an Ally Martin sac fly to tie the game, setting up Patrie’s winning scamper.

“The top of this lineup, we needed to keep our heads in the game and just keep trying to hit the ball,” Patrie said. “We knew if we did that, we’d be all set. It was hard for us to get into the dugout and get excited (in the seventh), but we did.”