FARMINGTON — Katie Sumner knew she was running.

She didn’t know when or how, but when that opportunity came her legs were going to be moving before her mind told her to go.

So when a low pitch in the fourth inning hit the dirt and scooted by the Georges Valley catcher, Sumner was on the move.

“Coach told me, ‘If there’s a passed ball, you’re scoring,'” said the senior third baseman. “That’s what I did. It was by her, and I ran. You could kind of tell it was going by her. So I knew I was going.”

That lone run held up in a 1-0 Telstar win over the Bucs in the Mountain Valley Conference Championship game at Prescott Field Monday. It is  the third conference title for the Rebels in the last five years.

“It’s big but it’s far away from what we want to be,” said senior pitcher Kayla Merrill. “It’s still pretty big but what we wanted to do was see what they looked like. If we get down the road and have to see them, we know a little more about them now.”

Merrill befuddled the Buc hitters once again. She allowed just two hits and struck out six. Georges Valley scored 174 runs this year in 14 games. It’s been so long since the Bucs have been shut out that coach Rusty Worcester didn’t know when the last time was. It was at least over 60 games ago since Georges Valley came into the game with a 61-game regular season winning streak.

“I don’t know,” said Worcester of getting blanked. “That’s a good question. I know it’s not many times. It doesn’t happy very often. I take my hat off to her. She’s a great pitcher. She really spots the ball well.”

Georges Valley pitcher Rachel Frye pitched almost as well. She gave up just two hits to Sumner. She struck out seven, walked two and hit one batter.

“Good pitching is going to beat good hitting,” said Worcester, who will coach softball at Oceanside High School next year when Georges Valley merges with Rockland. “Anybody would be scarce to say that we might have the best hitting in the conference by far. That’s not to disrespect Telstar or anybody else. Both pitchers threw the ball well. They hit their spots and made them tough to hit.”

The Bucs had a hard time getting much off Merrill. She walked a batter in the first. Another reached on an error in the second. Natalie Russell had a single and moved to second but was stranded. Kelsie Thompson had the other hit with two outs in the seventh and was gunned out at second to end the game.

“Both pitchers threw well today,” said Telstar coach Jim Lunney. “I think Kayla kept them off balance. They hit one ball hard and (Hannah Morin) made a nice little catch on it. Other than that, they were off their stride a bit.”

In addition to Morin’s nice running catch in center in the first, the Rebels got solid defensive play from Sumner at third, Autumn Berry at short, Kallie Brown at second, Nicena Walker at first and Lyndsay Merrill behind the plate. Merrill also did a fine job calling pitches for her sister.

“Rarely did I ever have to shake her off,” said Kayla Merrill. “She called everything so perfectly. The inside corner was working today. So that’s where we stayed.”

The Bucs didn’t produce many solid hits. They were popping up a lot and struggling against inside pitches and high offerings. Merrill had nine shutouts during the regular season.

“They didn’t particularly like the inside pitches,” said Lyndsay Merrill. “So I tried to stay in there with a fastball or an inside curve. A lot of them swung at high pitches. So if they swung at high stuff, I was just going to keep going high.”

The way both pitchers were throwing, runs weren’t going to come easily. Both teams knew they’d have to manufacture something somehow.

“That one run, that’s how we play,” said Lunney. “We got her over. A fly ball and she tags up on it. You play for that opportunity to score.”

Sumner led off the fourth with her first single of the day. She moved to second on a Kayla Merrill sacrifice. Walker followed with a wonderful at bat. She forced Frye to throw nine pitches before Walker flied out on a full count. It allowed Sumner to take third on the tag after Jill Bradbury made a diving catch.

With Morin at the plate, Frye threw a low pitch in the dirt that got past catcher Jessie Veilleux. Sumner was running almost immediately and beat Veilleux’s throw home.

“I saw her out of the corner of my eye trying to throw the ball,” said Sumner. “So I knew I had to slide to be safe.”

Telstar loaded the bases in the fifth on a hit batter, walk and Sumner single, but the Bucs escaped that threat. Georges Valley couldn’t answer though as Merrill put them down effortlessly over the final innings.

“When we get at least a run cushion, it helps me get into a groove and it helps everyone else relax a little more,” said Kayla Merrill. “Then everything we do comes to us like second nature.”

Telstar (14-1) and Georges Valley (14-0) are the two top seeds in Western C and begin the tourney with quarterfinal games Thursday.  If both squads can advance, they could meet again next week for the fifth straight time in the regional final.

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