After a nearly three-hour rain delay, the Bucks took the field again and quickly showed they could still throw the leather around, even on a soggy field.

Top-seeded Buckfield played spectacular defense and made No. 5 Richmond pay for its fielding miscues for a 4-1 win.

“It feels good because it’s been a while since Buckfield’s won a playoff game,” Buckfield left fielder Dustin Damon said. “It’s the first time in probably five or six years.”

The Bucks (16-1) move on to the regional finals (3 p.m. Wednesday, St. Joseph’s College), where they will try for their first Western D title since 1997 against the winner of Saturday’s semifinal between Greenville and Valley.

“These guys are very loose, almost too loose sometimes. They were ready to go (after a 2-hour, 41-minute delay),” Buckfield coach Joe McLaughlin said. “They’re hungry. We haven’t been to a Western Maine (final) in a while. We have a lot of expectations for ourselves.”

Buckfield beat Richmond by scores of 11-1 and 12-1 during the regular season, but the Bobcats (6-11) hung tough even after the Bucks jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on an unearned run scored on a wild pitch and Damon’s RBI single.

The Bobcats cut the deficit in half in the third when Dustin Sullivan scored on Cody White’s wild pitch with one out. But they could have had more.

With Peter Lorbeski at third, Ben Carver lifted a fly ball to medium depth left field near the line. Damon caught it and uncorked a perfect throw that reached catcher Alan Lebel on the fly about five feet up the third-base line. Lebel tagged the leaping Lorbeski on the lower leg for the double play that preserved the lead.

“I was looking at (Lorbeski). I didn’t think he was going to tag,” Damon said. “I saw him come back and tag third and I heard the third base coach yell ‘Go,’ so my first instinct was just to gun him at home.”

“He’s been big defensively all year,” McLaughlin said. “He’s really been a rock in left field with a very good arm. I think he sort of lulls people to sleep sometimes and then surprises them with it.”

The Bucks got another defensive gem in the fifth when shortstop Austin Dooley dove to smother a Cam Emmons bouncer up the middle, then nabbed Emmons by half a step with the throw.

Buckfield made it 4-1 in the fifth thanks to two of Richmond’s five errors on the day. Both errors came with two out and allowed Trevor Averill to score his second run of the day on Lebel’s infield single and Lebel to score the final run on a throwing error by the shortstop.

“We gave them a couple of runs,” said Richmond coach Ryan Gardner, whose team rebounded from a 1-10 start to win five of its last six. “It’s 4-1 and it could be 2-1, and you could suicide and you could bunt and do other things which are part of our game. But when it’s 4-1, you have to get people on.”

The Bobcats did have some success doing that against Buckfield starter White, who allowed five hits, three walks and a hit batsmen and fanned nine while going the distance. But White knuckled down when he had to, stranding eight base runners, and benefited from the excellent defense.

“You couldn’t ask for better from Cody,” Lebel said. “He switched things up a little bit with his pitches and got them right in a zone. He knew he had a good defense and he relied on us and believed in us and we believed in him.”

“I’ve seen Cody pitch better. But one thing we’ve counted on from him the whole year is making big pitches,” McLaughlin said. “He stranded eight runners. He finds a way to do that.”

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