STANDISH — Freshman Sydney Tilton has watched many Richmond softball teams win championships as a young spectator.

Wednesday, it was her turn.

Tilton scored twice, had two hits and drove in a pair to lead Richmond to a 12-0 win over Searsport in the Western D championship game at Bailey Field at Saint Joseph’s College.

“When we just got here, it all came back to me,” Tilton said. “I remember coming here and watching them win. That feeling of coming here with this team and feeling that same feeling is something I can’t expain.”

The win marked the sixth consecutive regional title for the Bobcats (17-0) and their 51st straight victory. Richmond plays in Saturday’s Class D state game against Stearns, also at Bailey Field.

“It feels like I’ve been on this team for four years,” Tilton said. “They’re great. I love being on this team.”

Pitcher Meranda Martin scored three runs for the Bobcats and had two hits, driving in a run. She also allowed just five hits. Kelsi Obi and Emily Douin also drove in runs for the Bobcats.

“She pitched excellent,” Richmond coach Rick Coughlin said. “She really bore down. She’s really a competitor. In those situations, she just bears down.”

Richmond scored a run in the first and then broke it open with six in the second on one hit and five Searsport errors. Though the Vikings were down early, Searsport stranded nine runners through the first four innings. The Vikings finished with six errors.

“We couldn’t get the clutch hits,” Searsport coach Dave Pepin said. “We talked about it this week. We had to pitch well and I think Brittany (Ward) did that. We had to play good defense and we didn’t.”

Anna Bucklin and Arianna Stemp each had two hits for Searsport, but the Vikings stranded two runners in the first, second and fourth and left the bases loaded in the third.

Richmond took a 1-0 lead in the first with a Tilton RBI single that plated Martin. The second inning was disaster for Searsport (13-6). Richmond scored a pair on errors and a single by Kalah Patterson and a subsequent error cleared the bases, making it 6-0. Patterson later scored on a wild pitch for the 7-0 lead.

“That’s how we like to play,” Martin said. “We like to jump on them with the first at-bat and get a few runs.”

Between the steady rain and consistent presence of runners on base for the Vikings, Martin worked through a few jams, but maintained the shutout.

“It was really hard in the rain,” Martin said. “My adrenaline got going a little bit. I wasn’t really hitting anything. It was a little nerve-wracking.”

Richmond added two more in the fourth when Tilton  was hit by a pitch and advanced on passed balls. She scored on a wild pitch. A Douin sacrifice fly made it 9-0.

“If we could have shut it down in that second inning, it wouldn’t have been 7-0 instead of 1-0,” Pepin said. “We loaded the bases after that and didn’t score. We hoped to play better defense.”

Richmond finished off the win with three runs in the fifth. Martin doubled in a run. Then Tilton followed with an infield hit that plated Martin. An Obi single ended the game.

“We didn’t get nervous when they had so many people on because we had so many runs and we had that spacing between us,” Martin said.

kmills@sunjournal.com

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