STANDISH — When he wasn’t throwing fastballs and curves past Calais hitters, Dirigo’s Ryan Lafleur was flinging dirt around the Mahaney Diamond mound.

Whatever Lafleur’s right arm was slinging Saturday, it worked.

Backed by an errorless defense, Lafleur struck out 11. The offense backed him up, too, with timely hitting and aggressive baserunning for a 4-2 victory over Calais and Dirigo’s first Class C baseball championship ever.

“Our goal was a perfect season,” said Lafleur, whose team finished the season 18-2. “When we did lose, including the MVC championship, that showed us that we’ve got to start out early, get out on top and get that momentum and ride it out to a win.”

That was what the Cougars did. They got on top and kept the momentum by waiting out Calais starter Josh Gillespie (five innings, three hits, six walks), whose control problems came back to haunt him.

“We had heard that their pitchers like to throw first-pitch strikes, but we figured on the other hand we might want to watch a few pitches and kind of wear them down a little bit,” Dirigo coach Dave Lafleur said.

Dirigo plated single runners in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings to slowly build a 4-0 lead. Tyler Chiasson scored Spencer Ross, who had walked, with a clean single up the middle in the third. Every other run after that came by unorthodox means and Cliff Turner simply getting the bat on the ball.

Arik Fenstermacher scored from second on Turner’s infield single in the fourth. Ross scored the third run by drawing another walk, stole second and third and racing home on a wild pitch. Turner drove Eric Bolduc home from third with the final run with a ground ball to shortstop against reliever Adam Geel.

“Coach told me to swing fully, because I’ve been swinging halfway,” Turner said. “I just wanted to make contact like coach said.”

Some of the talk leading up to the game revolved around Calais’ baserunning. The Blue Devils (15-4) stole seven bases in the Eastern Maine championship but never really could get their brand of small-ball going because Lafleur (three walks, six hits) kept them off base for the most part through the first six innings. When they did get on base, he dug down for something extra, striking out the side around a walk in the fourth and fanning the final two batters after a leadoff single in the fifth.

Lafleur won his previous two playoff starts this year, but he made things harder for himself with walks, including four in 4.2 innings in Tuesday’s regional final against St. Dom’s.

“He hit the zone. He hit it where I wanted him to,” Bolduc said. “He was amazing today.”

“He mixed things up pretty well,” said Calais coach Kenny Murphy. “He had a very good fastball and located it well. He had some of our kids really off-balance with his curve ball.”

Occasional mound manicures helped Lafleur with his control.

“There’s a little bit of a front plate on that mound (in front of the rubber) that he had a little bit of trouble with the other day. Actually, he got a blister on his foot from it,” Dave Lafleur said. “Today, he kept taking some dirt and throwing a little bit on top of it. I don’t know how much of a difference it would make, but psychologically, whatever it takes, right?”

“My advantage,” said Ryan Lafleur, who finished the season 9-0. “I pitched  here Tuesday, so I knew coming in, don’t let that get filled up. Usually, at the beginning of the game I just like to dig it out, but they’ve got a good mound here. Digging out’s not going to do anything to it.”

His pitch count approaching 100, Lafleur tired in the seventh. Dylan Ramsdell, a thorn in his side all day with three hits, led off with a single, followed by another from Dylan Carter. A walk loaded the bases and Jeremy Carr spoiled the shutout with a two-out, two-run single. With Carr representing the tying run at first, Lafleur fanned Jeremy Beers for the fourth time to end it.

“I have to commend the kids because it was a great group of kids,” said Dave Lafleur, who coached his last game for Dirigo Saturday. “They worked hard and they made my job and our job as coaches kind of easy.”

“I can’t explain the feeling,” Bolduc said. “It’s just amazing.”