BANGOR – Fort Fairfield High School baseball coach George Solomon likened his team’s Eastern Maine Class D championship game against Jonesport-Beals to “a pair of fighters slugging it out for 10 rounds.”

And it was Jonesport-Beals High School senior southpaw Kevin Alley who landed the knockout punch in the 10th inning.

Alley’s bases-loaded triple, following a tie-breaking wild pitch, broke the game open and enabled the Royals to dethrone defending state champ Fort Fairfield 9-4 at the Mansfield Complex field in Bangor on Tuesday night.

Not only did Alley crush his three-run triple, he also singled and scored the tying run in the seventh and picked up the win with an impressive complete-game performance.

Jonesport-Beals, 16-2, faces Western Maine titlist Richmond (16-2) in Saturday’s 1 p.m. state championship game at Ward Field in Standish.

Alley, mixing a tailing fastball and nifty curve, struck out 14 and walked six while throwing 169 pitches. He outdueled righty Shawn Willette, who allowed 11 hits and nine runs while throwing 182 pitches.

Jeremy Beal’s infield single, on which shortstop David Bernard overthrew first, a Bernard throwing error on Stephen Bean’s grounder, an intentional walk to Ryan Libby, the wild pitch and a walk to Mike Kenney set the stage for Alley’s blast to the base of the fence in right field.

“I was waiting for that pitch all day,” said Alley of the inside fastball that he turned on.

As for his pitching performance, Alley said “I’ve never felt better out there. I was getting ahead of the hitters with my fastball and coming back with my curve.”

Jonesport-Beals tied the game in the top of the seventh when Alley rifled a leadoff single into center, stole second, went to third on Elliott Peabody’s groundout and scored when Byron Carver poked a one-out line drive single to center.

Jonesport-Beals had led 3-1 but Fort Fairfield parlayed a bloop single, three infield hits and two errors into a three-run fifth-inning rally that gave the Tigers their first lead of the game.

Eric Cunningham ignited the rally by fisting Alley’s inside fastball into short right field for a base hit and Joseph Solomon followed by lining the ball in and out of Alley’s glove for an infield hit.

Graham Sayers then bounced a slow roller to the right of first baseman Peabody, whose off-balance throw to Alley was late and low and skipped to the fence.

Cunningham scored and Solomon raced to third on the play. Sayers then stole second.

Mark Sprague followed with a run-producing infield single to the shortstop hole and when shortstop Mike Kenney’s one-hop throw got past first baseman Peabody, Sayers came around to score what proved to be the winning run.

Sprague tried to score on Willette’s single to right but was gunned down at the plate by Peabody. Peabody had taken a perfect relay throw from RF Jeremy Beal.

Royals 9, Tigers 4

Jonesport-Beals Fort Fairfield

Name ab r h bi Name ab r h bi

Libby, c 2 1 2 2 C’nningh’m, cf 6 2 1 0

Kenney, ss 5 1 0 0 Solomon, c 5 1 3 0

K. Alley, p 6 2 2 3 Sayers, 1b 6 1 2 0

Peabody, 1b 6 0 1 0 Sprague, 2b 5 0 4 2

Carver, 3b 6 1 3 1 a-McCullough 0 0 0 0

Fagonde, cf 4 1 0 0 Nichols, rf 4 0 0 0

Crowley, dh 4 0 0 0 Dem’rch’nt, lf 4 0 1 0

Look, 2b 0 0 0 0 Willette, p 4 0 1 0

Beal, rf 5 2 3 1 Findlen, dh 4 0 1 0

Bean, lf 5 1 0 0 Boulier, 3b 0 0 0 0

Bernard, ss 5 0 0 0

Totals 43 9 11 7 Totals 43 4 13 2

a-ran for Sprague in 9th inning

Jonesport-Beals 001 200 100 5 – 9

Fort Fairfield 001 030 000 0 – 4

E – Bernard 3, Sprague, Boulier; Peabody 2, Kenney 2 2B – Findlen, Libby 3B – Alley LOB – Jonesport-Beals 11, Fort Fairfield 16 DP – Willette to Sprague to Sayers SB – Libby 2, Alley, Peabody, Beal; Solomon 2, Sayers, Sprague 2 S – Nichols

PITCHER IP H R ER BB SO

Jonesport-Beals

Alley (W, 10-2) 10 13 4 3 6 14

Fort Fairfield

Willette (L, 2-1) 10 11 9 6 6 9

HBP – Fagonde (by Willette) WP – Willette 3 TIME – 3:20 ATTENDANCE – 267