Rain washes out leads and games

When the heavens opened up Wednesday night, Witches coach Kelly Cookson knew someone was watching over her team.

Down 5-2 in the bottom of the third inning of the Eastern Maine Class A finals, the Brewer girls were coming to bat after giving up four unearned runs on four errors and five hits.

But with the night’s rain, the game and Medomak Valley of Waldoboro’s lead, were washed away.

“We know we’re lucky,” Cookson said Thursday night. “Someone’s watching over us, so were going to take advantage of it.”

After two days of rain, Eastern Maine Class A softball and Class C baseball play, between Piscataquis and Narraguagus, will happen tonight at 7 p.m.

We hope.

“We had originally attempted to do the makeup today but we got rained out,” explained Dick Tyler, the Maine Principals Association’s executive director, Thursday afternoon. “We guarantee that the weather tomorrow will be perfect.”

Not withstanding that promise, should Friday’s games be rained out, the affected EM baseball and softball finals would be pushed to Saturday.

In that event, the Class A softball and Class C baseball state games would be played Monday at a time to be announced.

All of the other state games would take place as scheduled on Saturday, Tyler said.

Tickets for the postponed games will be honored at the gate, Tyler said. Admission will be collected for the Friday games if Wednesday’s tickets are not presented.

As for the coaches, what to do about pitchers and getting the players ready for two championship games in two days?

“We’ve both got our top two pitchers ready to go and you may see all four of them,” said Piscataquis coach Kevin Jordan of his, and Narraguagus opponent John Sawyer’s, plans. “John’s philosphy is the same as mine, we’ve got to win (Friday) night before we can worry about Saturday.”

“(Western Maine champion) Yarmouth is coming in at a great advantage because someone has to go in and win it tomorrow, and then get on the bus to go home at 10, and come in the next morning for the 11:30 state game,” Jordan noted, without enthusiasm.

As for the hardship of playing two championship games in a row, it’s a burden the teams are willing to bear.

“They know they have the chance to play for the Eastern Maine championship twice, and that’s never going to happen again, so we have to be ready,” Cookson said. “If we’re fortunate enough to be there Saturday, we’ll be ready.”