AUGUSTA — Among all the possible outcomes of Tuesday’s Eastern Class A baseball championship, this was the one nobody saw coming.

The idea of Lewiston losing wasn’t utterly absurd. It happened three straight times early in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference season, after all.

Seeing the Blue Devils get knocked around Morton Field by a double-digit margin seemed a laughable suggestion. Well, it’s No. 4 Messalonskee that earned the right to laugh all the way to the state final after a 13-2 thrashing of No. 2 Lewiston.

“They’ve improved tremendously since the first time we played them,” Lewiston coach Todd Cifelli said. “We overwhelmed them the first time and they came back and overwhelmed us today. They’re a deserving team to lead the East.”

Lewiston (15-4) prevailed at home by seven runs back in the second game of the regular season.

Round two was all Messalonskee (14-5). The Eagles chased Devils ace Corbin Hyde in the fourth inning, went up 7-0 in the fifth and pounded out 14 hits to run away with their school’s first-ever Class A regional title.

Jake Dexter, one of three freshman starters in the Messalonskee lineup, belted a pair of two-run doubles. Travis St. Pierre and Josh Woodard each drove in three runs.

St. Pierre established the Eagles with a sacrifice fly in the first inning and a two-run double to the deepest cranny of the ballpark in the third.

“I think that was the farthest I’ve ever hit a ball in my life,” St. Pierre said of his blast over center fielder Chris Madden‘s head and outstretched glove. “We needed to get the lead. A couple of hits, a couple of runs just gave us a lot of confidence.”

No. 9 hitter Gage Landry joined the parade with three singles and three runs scored for Messalonskee, which will meet Scarborough for the state title at noon Saturday in Standish.

The Eagles ride a nine-game winning streak. Messalonskee split its first 10 games after a 4-12 season in 2011.

“We had a long meeting when we were 5-5,” Messalonskee coach Ray Bernier said. “We just kind of vented it out and then started winning some games.”

Lewiston’s own 11-game streak ended in astounding fashion. Nate Berube had two hits and both RBIs for the Blue Devils.

Messalonskee’s pitching trio of Reid Nutter, Patrick Breton and Dexter combined on a six-hitter. Nutter carried a two-hit shutout into the fifth before his day ended with walks by Alex Small and Hyde and a Berube single.

Nutter allowed base runners in each of Lewiston’s first four frames, but never until there already were two out.

“He pitched with some confidence and kept getting leadoff guys out,“ Cifelli said of Nutter. “That’s been the key to our offense this year. When we played them before we got leadoff guys on. We really didn’t have a lot of spots today. We kept thinking the big inning is coming, the big inning is coming, but it never really came for us the last few games.”

Breton escaped the mini-jam in the fifth by picking up the second and third outs through the air.

Lewiston went three-up, three-down in the sixth, highlighted by a Sam Dexter-to-Jake Dexter-to-Taylor Clark double play.

But Messalonskee essentially had put the game out of reach in the fourth, when a single by Nutter, Zach Mathieu’s double and a Woodard single showed Hyde the door.

Landry greeted Matt Bowen with a single and later scored on a wild pitch to make it 6-0 Eagles.

“I loved their approach at the plate. Corbin had good stuff today and Bowen threw good pitches, but they kept their weight back and drove the baseball,” Cifelli said.

Sam Dexter reached second base in the fifth on a dropped fly ball, one of four Lewiston errors. He later scored on one of Devin Warren’s three singles.

“We haven’t had many games like this where multiple guys had multiple hits,” Bernier said.

koakes@sunjournal.com

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