DIXFIELD — There was a moment this spring when Sara Thurston sat down and tried to figure out how to save the softball season.

Her Dirigo  team had started the year 1-4 and had lost its starting pitcher to an injury. At the high school level, it was enough adversity to derail any team.

“I had to sit down with myself and say ‘We’ve got talent,'” said Thurston, a first-year coach with the Cougars. “This was going to be a breaking point and how do you keep them focused? How do you keep them motivated? That’s any coach’s true outlook on their players, especially when you have pretty solid talent.”

Playing for a Western Class C title was well off Dirigo’s radar, especially since the Cougars have never come close to a regional title.

Dirigo overcame that early adversity and now have a 7:30 p.m. Tuesday date with Sacopee Valley at Saint Joseph’s College for the regional crown.

“We all had a good outlook on the season, but we knew we had to work hard and pick each other up,” said senior centerfielder Mariah Larsen. “Everyone was kind of down early on. Then we just pulled it together, and we’ve come this far.”

The players sensed the trouble in those first few weeks. The first three losses were by one run.

Then after a lopsided victory, the Cougars were blanked 4-0 by Monmouth. Ambyr Wilson had replaced the injured Alyssa Wade in the pitcher’s circle while the rest of the Cougars were adjusting as well. Morale wasn’t very high.

“It was really rough,” said senior catcher Alyssa Charity. “Me and Alyssa had pitched together since like sixth grade. Knowing she wasn’t going to pitch was really rough for me. You get used to your pitcher after awhile. You have a certain connection. Not that Ambyr and I don’t have a connection. Alyssa and I, we both knew what she could do, and that was really rough for us.”

Thurston tried to keep the team moving forward. She told her players to work hard and that the wins would come eventually.

“Our coach really kept us up,” said Wade, a senior, who played first while Wilson did a superb fill-in pitching jon until Wade was ready to return midway through the season. “She said if she wasn’t down, we couldn’t be either. She really kept us going. Once we got that first win, we started our season over.”

The Cougars struggled to get all facets of their game going.

Wilson gave them solid pitching, but it was a matter of getting the offense untracked and keeping the defense sharp.

“On any given day, we didn’t have all three of those together,” said Thurston.

The Cougars had a significant win over Spruce Mountain, a team that defeated Dirigo earlier in the year.

But after a one-run loss to Hall-Dale in the bottom of the seventh and a 4-3 loss to Madison, the Cougars were 3-6.

“We have a strong group of players,” said Thurston. “They all worked in the same direction. They’ve really focused on being a solid team and the true meaning of being a team. They supported each other tremendously. That was key in not having that breakdown early in the season. They had faith in each other. They knew they had to stick together and work through it.”

Dirigo hasn’t lost since. The Cougars won  seven straight to end the regular season, the last five of those wins came on the road.

“After that third win in a row, we knew we were ready,” said Charity. “That was what we should have been doing since the beginning.”

Dirigo didn’t have an easy road entering the Western C tournament. They had to beat a quality fifth-ranked Hall-Dale team, then knock off the top-ranked Madison Bulldogs on the road.

“I think we knew we could do it,” said  Larsen. “We were still scared because we knew we could lose in the first round, but we pulled it all together. We just picked each other up. It’s really pulled us through. Now that we’ve gone this far, we’ve got some good momentum going.”

Reaching the semifinal round has been a rarity for Dirigo. Being in the regional final is a first.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” said Charity. “It’s totally exciting to know we’re going, especially us seniors since we’ve never done it before. It’s such a great way to finish off after graduation and everything.”

The softball team gets to share the spotlight Tuesday with the Dirigo baseball team. Baseball plays for the regional crown in the afternoon at St. Joe’s while the softball team completes the Dixfield doubleheader with a game in prime time.

“We thought we had a lot of momentum going,” said Wade. “We knew we’d be a tough out anyway. Once we got our bats going and had our pitching back with our offense and defense, it’s really cool, especially to go with our boys. It’s the first time ever.”

Fourth-ranked Dirigo (12-6) plays a solid Sacopee Valley (8-10) team that came in with a deceiving six regular-season wins. The seventh-seeded Hawks played 10 games against Western Class B teams, including powers Fryeburg and Greely.

Sacopee last won the states with back-to-back titles in 2003 and 2004.

The Hawks knocked off the MVC champs from Monmouth, ranked second, and then edged third-seeded Lisbon. They’ll be a tough matchup for the Cougars.

“I honestly think that if we do what we did (to get to the final), we’ll be fine,” said Larsen. “We’ve got a really tough team. After we started pulling it together, you could see other teams were struggling trying to get to us. So I think it will be a good battle between us.”

[email protected]