By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

STANDISH – One pitch zagged when it should have zigged. One grounder that should have nestled softly into a shortstop’s glove bit the lip of the grass and bounced over the glove.

Such were the bad breaks that combined with a couple of costly mistakes in a fifth inning that spelled doom for St. Dom’s in the Class C state championship game.

Searsport scored four times in the fifth and Matt Nickerson pitched four innings of no-hit relief as Searsport picked up its first state title since 1975 with a 5-2 win over St. Dom’s Saturday at Mahaney Diamond on the campus of St. Joseph’s College.

“We started to put the ball in play and (St. Dom’s starter Brady Blackman) was on three days rest and it was a hot day. We knew if we just kept working that good stuff would happen,” Nickerson said. “And good stuff happened.”

The Vikings had managed just one hit and were trailing 2-0 entering the fateful inning. But they forced Blackman to throw a lot of pitches through the first four innings (66 pitches) and it finally paid dividends in the fifth.

Nate Adams (single) and Kyle Ritchie (walk) got the rally going with none out. With No. 9 hitter Casey Ashey at the plate, Blackman (seven innings, six hits, nine Ks, three walks) tried to pick off Adams at second, but the throw sailed high and into center field, moving both runners up a base.

“I made a bad throw,” Blackman said. “There was someone there. I threw behind him. It’s something we work on all the time in practice and nine times out of 10 it’s executed. I just didn’t execute it.”

Blackman struck out Ashey looking, and Ashey was ejected for making an obscene gesture at the home plate umpire when he returned to the dugout. That and a foul out to catcher Mike Carpenter seemed to curb Searsport’s momentum. Blackman then fanned Bob Wilson swinging, but the ball got away from Carpenter and went to the backstop. That allowed Ashey to reach, Adams to score and, perhaps more importantly, kept the inning alive for Searsport (14-5).

Wilson stole second to put two runners in scoring position. Caleb Ashey followed and hit what should have been an inning-ending grounder just to the left of the second base bag, but the ball took a bad hop and bounced over shortstop Peter Lewis’ glove into center field, scoring Ritchie and Wilson to give Searsport the lead.

“I’m not disappointed in the outcome of the game because two bad hops in that inning was the difference in the game,” Bob Blackman said. “You’ve got second and third, two outs, strike three and you get a bad bounce. It was a slider and, for whatever reason, it took a right-hand turn. The ball’s not supposed to go that way.”

Josh Nickerson drove home an insurance run when he laced an 0-2 pitch off the wall in left for a double that scored Ashey and made it 4-2.

“After the first time around in the batting order, our kids started putting the ball in play a lot more,” Searsport coach David Pepin said. “We knew (Blackman) was only on three days rest, so we had a game-plan coming in to look at some pitches early. That might have helped out in the fifth inning.”

“I’m not going to use (pitching on three days rest) as an excuse,” Brady Blackman said. “I made one bad pitch that inning, but other than that, I was beating the guys. They weren’t hitting the ball hard. I was tired but that wasn’t an excuse to lose the game.”

The Saints (17-3) took a 2-0 lead off Adams in the second on RBI singles by Andy Allen and Tom Edgecomb. They had a chance to add on to the lead in the third, but left two men on. Nickerson came on to start the fourth and made that their last legitimate threat.

“I think we had Adams’ number, but then Nickerson came in and he was keeping us off-balance,” Brady Blackman said. “His fastball was tough to pick up, I thought, and he had a pretty good curve.”

Pepin said Adams got the starting nod over Nickerson after complaining of some tightness in his right shoulder during Friday’s practice. Nickerson showed no ill effects Saturday, though, allowing only three baserunners on two walks and an error.

“Having the extra day off helped out a lot,” said Nickerson. “Coming out here on a warm day, I was able to get it loose. Pitching off that mound is like a hill out there. We don’t have that down home. I was pretty excited about that.”