Baseball: Area teams head into postseason recognizing the importance of matchups

Oxford Hills first baseman Ryder Kennison forces out Edward Little’s TJ Kramarz a game last month at Central Maine Community College in Auburn. The Vikings and Red Eddies are both looking to make a run in the Class A North playoffs. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Any team that earns a postseason berth has a shot at representing their region in the state championship, area coaches say.

Matchups, they add, are more important than the seed listed next to a team’s name.

Here is a class-by-class overview of the upcoming baseball playoffs:

CLASS A

One thing plentiful among Class A North playoff teams is pitching depth.

“Everybody has pitching in the league,” Edward Little coach Dave Jordan said. “It’s so much about matchups. I feel like we have some good pitchers at the spot we are at. I know that Bangor has good pitching, Mt. Ararat has good pitching. You go down the list: everybody has good pitching.”

The Red Eddies (9-7) are the eighth and lowest seed in A North. They take on the No. 1 Brewer (14-2) in the quarterfinals. The teams met early in the season, with the Witches coming on top with a 3-2 win on April 21. It was one of three one-run losses for the Red Eddies during the regular season.

“I think that game was an hour and a half or less,” Jordan said. “It was well-played by both teams, great pitching by both teams, great defense. We actually ended the game with some very loud outs in terms of hitting the ball well. We could have gone either way.”

The winner will take on either No. 4 Messalonskee or No. 5 Hampden Academy in the semifinals. The Red Eddies, as a seventh seed, made a run to the regional final last spring.

Second-seeded Oxford Hills lost two of its final three regular games, a win over Lewiston sandwiched between losses to Brewer and No. 3 Skowhegan (11-5).

The Vikings (12-4) draw No. 7 Bangor in the regional quarterfinal. Oxford Hills defeated Bangor 9-4 on May 20. It is a difficult opener for Oxford Hills because the Rams are the reigning region champs and are almost always a contender in A North.

The winner faces No. 3 Skowhegan or No. 6 Mt. Ararat (8-7-1) in the semifinals. The two semifinals winners face each other for the Class A North title at Morton Field in Augusta on June 13.

The top four seeds in the South are No. 1 Falmouth, No. 2 South Portland, No. 3 Scarborough and No. 4 Thornton Academy. The state championship game will be played at University of Southern Maine in Gorham on June 17.

Class B

Only one area team earned a Class B South postseason berth, No. 10 Leavitt, which travels to take on the 2022 Class B runner-up Freeport, this year’s seventh seed, in a preliminary round game. Both teams enter the game 8-8.

The winner will take on the No. 2 Yarmouth (11-5) in the quarterfinals.

No. 3 Wells (11-5) will await the winner of No. 6 Greely (9-7) and No. 11 York (9-7) in the quarters.

No. 1 Cape Elizabeth (12-3-1) will host either No. 8 Morse (8-8) or No. 9 Erskine Academy (9-7). The other quarterfinal game is between No. 4 Medomak Valley (9-7) and No. 5 Fryeburg Academy (10-6).

The regional final is June 13 at St. Joseph’s College in Standish.

The top four seeds in the North are No. 1 Old Town, No. 2 Cony, No. 3 Ellsworth, and No. 4 Lawrence. The state championship is June 17 at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor.

Class C

There are a handful of teams in Class C South that can make it to the regional final.

“There are a lot of good teams,” Monmouth coach Eric Palleschi said. “A lot of teams have very good No. 1 and No. 2 pitchers. The matchups are going to dictate how things come out. You mix in your Sacopee Valley’s — they are very good, very solid.”

Second-seeded Monmouth Academy (15-1) has a bye into the Class C South regional quarterfinals and will take on either No. 7 Lisbon (11-5) or No. 10 Boothbay/Wiscasset (6-9). The Mustangs beat the Greyhounds 12-2 and Boothbay/Wiscasset 12-0 this season.

In the teams’ regular season matchup, reigning C South champion Lisbon defeated Boothbay/Wiscasset 9-1.

Third-seeded Oak Hill (13-3) also has a bye and will battle of the prelim between No. 6 Winthrop (10-6) and No. 11 Spruce Mountain (6-10) in the quarterfinals. The Ramblers handed the Raiders one of their three losses this season. Oak Hill swept Spruce Mountain in a doubleheader last month.

“We had a pretty good season, 13-and-3, and we played pretty good baseball throughout the year,” Oak Hill coach Chad Stowell said. “We feel like we’re are playing good baseball right now, and that’s pretty important.”

Winthrop won the lone meeting with Spruce Mountain this season, 5-1 on May 19.

If Monmouth and Oak Hill reach the regional semifinals, it will be their fourth meeting this season. The squads third meeting will be the Mountain Valley Conference championship, which is slated for Saturday. If Winthrop gets through, it will be the Ramblers’ third time facing Monmouth this season.

“That’s a lot of seeing each other, especially two teams that already know each other,” Palleschi said of Oak Hill. “Winthrop is the same way; we faced them a couple of times.”

Mt. Abram (12-4), the fifth seed, was hoping for a bye but will face No. 12 Madison (4-11) in a preliminary game. The Roadrunners beat the Bulldogs 14-1 on April 24.

Stowell said the depth of C South and the Mountain Valley Conference means that every team has a difficult path through the region tournament.

“A team like Mt. Abram, who we just (beat) in a one-run game and beat us earlier in the season, is a five seed,” Stowell said. “I think they ended the season with 12 wins — that’s pretty impressive that we have that much depth. You look at the depth of the MVC and you add in Sacopee Valley, who went undefeated, and Waynflete, who only had three losses on the season. You are going to be playing tough teams in the region, starting Tuesday in the prelims.”

The Mt. Abram-Madison winner will face the No. 4 Waynflete/North Yarmouth Academy (13-3) in the quarterfinals.

The region’s top seed, Sacopee Valley (16-0), earns an automatic berth into the quarterfinals, where it will face the winner of No. 8 Dirigo (10-6) and No. 9 Hall-Dale (6-10).

The Cougars and Bulldogs split the season series, Dirigo winning 14-6 on May 15 and Hall-Dale taking this past Tuesday’s game 10-7. Neither team has faced Sacopee this season.

The regional final is June 13 at the University of Southern Maine. The state championship will be at the same place on June 17.

The top four seeds in the North are No. 1 Mattanawcook, No. 2 Washington Academy, No. 3 Bucksport and No. 4 Dexter.

Class D

Defending state champion St. Dominic Academy (11-5) enters the Class D South playoffs as the third seed. The Saints have played a mostly Class C schedule and have often faced their opponents’ top pitchers throughout the regular season.

“Going into last year, we weren’t getting a lot of respect out of the teams in our conference,” St. Dom’s coach Bob Blackman said. “We didn’t see a boatload of No. 1s throughout the year. This year was the opposite: we are facing everybody’s No. 1. But, it can only help us.”

Five teams make the postseason in D South. The Saints will travel to Richmond in the regional semifinals to take on the No. 2 Bobcats (12-4).

The teams closed out the season with a doubleheader against each other in Auburn. St. Dom’s took the opener 9-5 before falling 4-1 in the second game.

“It was great for us,” Blackman said. “We utilized it as an opportunity; we were pretty sure that was going to be our opponent. We really went into it with our eyes open and pretty much knew we were going to prepare for them.”

No. 1 Searsport (13-3) awaits the quarterfinal winner of No. 4 Valley (7-5) and No. 5 Forest Hills (10-4).

“We are pretty much going to play Searsport and Richmond,” Blackman said. “Searsport, we have a rivalry with them over the years, going back to Class C. We faced them in the finals of the (Southern) Maine last year; we faced them the year before — they were the ones that knocked us out when they were the defending state champs. The two teams we know we got to face, we are confident in what we know about them.”

The regional semifinal winners meet on June 13 at St. Joseph’s College.

The top four teams in the North are No. 1 Katahdin, No. 2 Bangor Christian, No. 3 Woodland and No. 4 Hodgdon.

Mansfield Stadium in Bangor is hosting the state championship on June 17.