Class B baseball: Freeport’s run ends with loss to Old Town

Problem was, Old Town was there too, and the Coyotes, after spotting Freeport a 2-0 lead, hit with reckless abandon on their way to a 12-2 mercy rule win and their first state baseball championship.

All nine hitters in the Old Town lineup had at least one hit as the Coyotes pounded out 13 base-knocks. The top four in the Old Town lineup — Ryan Hoogterp, Drew Coulombe, Ethan Stoddard and Cole Daniel — were especially deadly, combining to go 7-for-12 with 11 runs scored.

“That is the strongest hitting team that we have seen this year, and they just didn’t let us get away with mistakes today,” Freeport coach Bill Ridge said.

“We are tough one through nine, and I could really arrange it a number of ways, and when we are hitting, we are all very good,” said Old Town (19-1) coach Brad Goody. “We had not scored more than three runs in the playoffs. But, they prepared very well for this game and it carried over.”

The contest had the making of a high-scoring affair as the teams combined for six first-inning runs. Max Doughty led off the game for Freeport (14-7) with a walk, and after a sacrifice bunt by Joey Burke, Old Town pitcher Stoddard put senior Jack Davenport on first with an intentional walk.

“We didn’t want Davenport to beat us,” Stoddard said.

The move backfired as Freeport cleanup hitter Colby Wagner singled to right field, with Doughty sliding head first to beat the throw to the plate for a 1-0 Falcons lead. Josh Burke followed with a sacrifice fly ball to center field to double Freeport’s early advantage.

“I have been in that situation a lot this year with them intentionally walking Jack to get to me and I haven’t delivered,” Wagner said. “It felt good to come through there. We did the same thing against Cape (Elizabeth) by scoring early, and we expected that would put them on their heels, but they came back.”

“Guys do treat Jack different, and rightly so with him being the best player in the state and conference, so that was a great moment for Colby,” Ridge said.

Old Town hits

Facing Freeport right-hander Josh Burke, who was stellar this postseason with wins over Morse (5-1) and Greely (1-0), Old Town went to work with the bats. Hoogterp, Coulombe, Stoddard (RBI) and Daniel (RBI) each singled on the first 10 pitches from Burke to tie the game.

“We came out with a new mindset and got it done,” Coulombe said. “We are usually not down too often, and we worked back and hit the ball.”

“There was a lot of game left, and I was happy that we got off to the hot start and led 4-2 after that first inning,” Goody said. “We didn’t change our approach today, and we talked about taking some pitches with a tight strike zone, but why fix it when it isn’t broke? They swung the bat and went for it. Everything seemed to work.”

A sacrifice fly ball by Jacob Ketch gave the Coyotes the lead, and a delayed double steal was pulled off perfectly by Austin Sheehan and Daniel, who swiped home.

“It is something that teams in the North know that we do a lot. Today, we tried it just to see how it would work. It worked out well,” Goody said.

Caiden Shea began the Freeport second with a single, but Old Town catcher Daniel threw Shea out on a steal attempt, and Stoddard worked around a walk to keep his team ahead by two runs.

Old Town doubled its run total in the second, taking advantage of two Freeport errors and an RBI single by Stoddard for an 8-2 lead.

“When we made a mistake, they capitalized. They followed up an error with a base hit, a double. That is how that we got here by taking advantage of mistakes. That is a heck of a team that we just played today,” Ridge said.

Stoddard found his rhythm on the mound, permitting just one hit (a Joey Burke fifth-inning single), one walk and one hit batter the rest of the way, throwing 70 pitches with three strikeouts and four walks.

Josh Burke worked 1 2/3 innings on eight hits, eight runs (four earned), three strikeouts and one walk. Austin Langley and Josh Spaulding combined on three innings of relief with five hits, one strikeout and two walks.

“You can’t do much when they were finding the holes,” said Davenport of the Coyotes.

Old Town upped its lead to 10-2 in the third, working a second double steal (Hoogterp scored) and receiving an RBI single by Ketch.

In the fifth, an error with one out put Stoddard on and Daniel worked a walk. With two outs, Sheehan doubled in the final two runs to end the contest and give the Coyotes the title.

Despite the loss, Davenport, one of five Falcon seniors (Shea, Ben Humphrey, Davenport, Caleb Rice, Brandon Cass), felt that his team had every reason to keep their chins up.

“This was magical, and to beat those number one teams is something to be proud of,” Davenport said. “We were champions of the South, and we shouldn’t be hanging our heads.”

“It has been incredible, getting messages, emails, not even congratulations but ‘thank yous.’ The fans were with us every step of the way,” Ridge said. “Those five seniors, sophomores when I got here, they were the base of the program from the start. They have come so far in these years, much different then the day that I met them three years ago. We don’t get here without them.”