DIXFIELD — The marks of No. 1 Dirigo’s 3-0 Western Class C baseball semifinal victory over No. 4 Hall-Dale probably are still visible this morning.

Both are shaped like a baseball. One screams out in red or purple just below Cougars freshman Tyler Frost’s left elbow. The other is a tiny crater resting about 10 feet in front of home plate at Harlow Park.

Frost took one for the team — a no-ball, two-strike offering from Ben Crocker to lead off the bottom of the fifth inning.

Brett Whittemore’s subsequent sacrifice bunt attempt popped straight up along the first base line. Crocker and catcher Matt Plourde tried to wish it foul but watched helplessly as it embedded itself in Dirigo’s all-dirt infield and spun like a top.

“That’s not the first time we’ve had a pop-up bunt work like that,” Dirigo coach Ryan Palmer said. “Obviously it wasn’t planned. It’s just the little things. We knew we had to play small ball to win today, especially after the first couple innings.”

And the table was set, more than halfway through an afternoon of gnawing hunger.

Hunter Ross’ successful sacrifice and a walk by T.J. Frost brought up senior Caleb Turner, who laced Crocker’s second offering into right center field for a two-run single.

“He walked T.J. on four pitches before me, so I took the first pitch and the next pitch was high and away,” Turner said. “I just took it the other way and we got two runs out of it.”

Frost tagged and raced to third on a fly out by Chad Snowman before scoring on a wild pitch.

Three runs in about two minutes of real time were ample padding for Dirigo senior ace Ben Holmes, who struck out five. His two-hit shutout extended his streak of not allowing an earned run to 29 innings.

“In your mindset (when it’s scoreless) you’ve got to think no errors. You can’t have any misplayed balls,” Holmes said. “The last couple innings when you’re up three or four, it feels better.”

Holmes won’t be eligible to pitch Tuesday, when Dirigo (17-1) takes on MVC rival and third-seeded Telstar in the Western Class C championship. Game time is 3 p.m. at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish.

It will be the Cougars’ third straight appearance in the regional final. Dirigo won the state title in 2010.

Turner was 2-for-3 against Hall-Dale senior Crocker, who allowed only five hits, fanned three and walked two.

Dirigo didn’t see Crocker in a 11-1 road rout at Hall-Dale (13-5) during the regular season.

“We probably approached it differently than they did. We’re a team that’s kind of had to regain our footing. We’ve been out of it the past couple years,” Hall-Dale coach Tim Johnson said. “So we kind of looked at it as any inning where they don’t score is an inning where we get closer to them. If we could turn this into a one-inning game, and we did, but it was their one inning.”

Holmes retired the first seven Hall-Dale hitters before Kurt Thiele’s one-out single in the third. Plourde poked the Bulldogs’ other base hit in the sixth.

Thiele was the lone Hall-Dale runner to reach third. Holmes helped save him from scoring when he nicked Crocker’s line drive with his glove and directed it to shortstop Turner, whose throw to Cody St. Germain at first ended the inning by a step.

Frost and Turner fueled Dirigo’s first frame with back-to-back singles. Snowman’s sacrifice put both into scoring position, but Crocker escaped by coaxing Holmes and St. Germain into groundouts.

“With Ben and Cody coming up you’d have thought something would happen,” Palmer said. “It didn’t work out, but we got the win and that’s all I care about.”

Dirigo also pushed Ross to third base with one out in the third. Crocker retired Turner and struck out Snowman and kept it scoreless.

“We had that chance in the first inning, but other than that we was a tough pitcher. He’s good,” Turner said. “He just mixes up his pitches like Ben does.”

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