But a play he made as a third baseman in the sixth inning overshadowed his yeoman’s work on the mound. With a runner at second and no outs, St. Dom’s rightfielder Aaron Schmitz looped what appeared to be a sure hit over Hutchins’ head down the left field line. In a full gallop, Hutchins made an over-the-shoulder catch, wheeled and fired a strike to second base to double up Mitch Lorenz, effectively ending the Saints’ threat.

“I was kind of channeling my inner Willie Mays,” Hutchins said as a sheepish grin formed between his ears.

“I practice those,” Hutchins added. “Coach will throw us these little pop-ups and I’m always catching them like that and he always yells at me. It worked out that time.”

The play also typified the afternoon for the Saints, who stranded nine runners in scoring position and 11 overall as Dirigo pushed three runs across the plate with the help of two key St. Dom’s errors to earn a 3-1 win in a late-season MVC showdown.

“Both of our losses, it was the same thing,” St. Dom’s coach Bob Blackman said. “We stranded a lot of runners, didn’t get the hits when we needed to.”

The Saints (14-2) made things interesting against reliever Chad Snowman in the seventh. Trailing by three, pitcher Zak Johnson led off reaching on an error at third base. He advanced to second on a wild pitch, and Caleb Dostie walked behind him. Both runners advanced on stolen bases, and Johnson scored on a Will Desmarais single to right.

But Snowman caught Desmarais straying too far from first and picked him off for the first out of the inning. A strikeout and a walk to Lorenz later, Snowman snagged a come-backer off Schmitz’s bat to end the game.

“It boiled down to no clutch hits,” Blackman said. “Hutchins helped us a bit in that his pitch count was way up. We worked him all game long, but we just couldn’t get the hit.”

Dirigo followed up its win over St. Dom’s with a 7-1 win over Lisbon in a game postponed from last week due to the rain, giving the Cougars a share of first place in Western Class C. With both Dirigo and St. Dom’s having lost to Winthrop, and with a split in their games against one another, the top seed in the conference heading into the playoffs will be determined by a coin flip to be held at a later date.

In addition to his 60-pitch, two-inning save, Snowman also gave Dirigo what St. Dom’s was lacking: timely hitting. He belted a pair of singles — one in the third inning and one in the fifth — to plate TJ Frost and Hunter Ross with unearned runs that proved to be the difference in the contest.

“(Snowman) got key hits when they needed them, and he hit quality pitches,” Blackman said. “We changed things up on him. The one down the right field line was a slider away and he was right on it, and then we threw him a fastball in and he did the same thing. Zak threw it right where we wanted it thrown, and he put together a great at-bat.”

“That’s what we do right there, we play a lot of small-ball,” Dirigo coach Ryan Palmer said. “We’re a good bunting team, we have a lot of team speed, so it works out well.We’ve been very good at taking advantage of other teams’ mistakes all year long. We stressed making sure that didn’t stop. When we get a chance, we need to take advantage of it.”

TJ Frost led off the home half of the first inning with a walk, and three batters later scored from second on a deep single by Tyler Frost.

Mike Bryant reached third after the first of his three singles on the afternoon in the second for the Saints, but was stranded there.

Following TJ Frost’s second run of the game, St. Dom’s had another golden opportunity in the fourth, but left the bases loaded. The Saints also left a runner on second in the fifth, and runners at second and third in the sixth.

“There were two unearned runs and no timely hitting,” Blackman said. “That’s the end result.”