Dorr guides Bangor to final vs. Hampden

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BANGOR – Keith Dorr may be small in stature but he looked a lot bigger than his 5-foot-9, 165-pound frame to the Gardiner High School Tigers on Saturday afternoon.

Dorr pitched five innings of five-hit, two-run ball and drove in three runs while going 3-for-4 as the defending three-time state champion Rams eliminated Gardiner 8-2 in their Eastern Maine Class A semifinal at Mansfield Stadium.

The 17-1 Rams, winners of 14 straight, take on Big East rival Hampden Academy, 12-6, in Wednesday’s 3 p.m. EM championship game at Mansfield.

Gardiner finished 11-7.

Righthander Dorr didn’t strike out anybody and walked three before being replaced by junior righty Travis Penny with two on and nobody out in the sixth.

Dorr threw 51 strikes among his 81 pitches.

“I felt great,” said Dorr. “I just tried to throw strikes and make the defense help me out. I didn’t have my curve working so I threw fastballs and made them hit it on the ground.”

Penny got out of the sixth-inning jam by striking out Pat Munzing and getting Miles Greenleaf to line into an inning-ending double play to first baseman Jake Civiello. He walked the leadoff man in the seventh but retired the next three hitters, striking out two.

Bangor, which committed six errors in a come-from-behind 4-3 quarterfinal win over Waterville on Thursday, was a much different team on Saturday.

“We were more relaxed today,” said junior center fielder T.J. True, who went 2-for-3, scored twice and knocked in a run. “We played much better defensively and we stung the ball. We went with the pitch instead of trying to pull it.”

The Rams wasted little time jumping on Gardiner junior righty Tim Bonenfant, touching him up for three first-inning runs and building an 8-1 lead by scoring in each of the first four innings.

True flaired an opposite-field double to left to ignite the first inning rally and Mike Wilcox sacrificed him to third. After Tom Waterman was hit by a pitch, True and Waterman worked a double steal with True beating the relay home.

Dorr then bounced an RBI single to center.

“I was ahead in the count 2-0 and I figured he had to groove it,” said Dorr. “He took something off it and I tried to poke it up the middle.”

Jeremy Karam slapped an opposite-field single down the third-base line and Darren Stover delivered Dorr with a ground-ball single to left.

Dorr’s two-run single to left-center accounted for the second-inning runs after True had walked and stolen second and Waterman had singled before he also stole second.

“He hung me a curve. It was high but I couldn’t let it go past,” said Dorr.

Pat Estey’s triple and True’s two-out infield single made it 6-0 in the third and, after Gardiner got one back on Josh Hayward’s two-out RBI single in the fourth, the Rams added a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the fourth.

Dorr doubled and scored on Karam’s RBI single to the opposite field. Bonenfant hit Stover with a pitch and was replaced by shortstop Phil Alley. Bonenfant moved to second base and Matt Soucie promptly hit a grounder that glanced off Bonenfant’s leg for a run-producing error.

Alley singled in a fifth-inning run for Gardiner but left fielder Estey made a nice running catch off Mike Smith’s fly ball into the gap to save a pair of runs.

Right fielder Soucie had made a nifty running catch in the first inning and catcher Chris Nill gunned down two runners attempting to steal second.

Rams 8, Tigers 2

Gardiner (11-7) Bangor (17-1)

Name ab r h bi Name ab r h bi

Alley, ss-p 4 0 2 1 True, cf 3 2 2 1

Smith, cf 3 1 1 0 Wilcox, 2b 3 0 0 0

Takatsu, c 2 0 0 0 Waterman, ss 3 2 2 0

Hayward, 1b 3 0 2 1 Dorr, p-c 4 2 3 3

Munzing, lf 2 0 0 0 a-Carey 0 0 0 0

Greenlf,2b-ss 3 0 0 0 Karam, dh 4 1 2 1

Bonenfnt,p-2b 1 1 0 0 Stover, 1b 2 0 1 1

Chapman, dh 2 0 0 0 Civiello, 1b 1 0 0 0

b-Soucy 1 0 0 0 Soucie, rf 4 0 0 0

Roberts, rf 2 0 0 0 Estey, lf 3 1 1 0

Mason, 3b 0 0 0 0 Shea, 3b 3 0 0 0

Nill, c 0 0 0 0

Totals 23 2 5 2 Totals 30 8 11 6

a-ran for Dorr in 2nd inning

b-struck out for Chapman in 7th inning

Gardiner 000 110 0 – 2

Bangor 321 200 x – 8

E – Shea, Alley, Bonenfant 2B – True, Dorr 3B – Waterman, Estey LOB – Gardiner 5, Bangor 8 DP – Civiello (unassisted) SB – True 2, Waterman 2 S – Wilcox

PITCHER IP H R ER BB SO

Gardiner

Bonenfant (L,4-3) 3 1/3 10 8 7 1 0

Alley 2 2/3 1 0 0 0 1

Bangor

Dorr (W,4-0) 5 5 2 2 3 0

Penny 2 0 0 0 1 3

HBP – Waterman and Stover, by Bonenfant; Takatsu, by Dorr TIME – 2:19 ATTENDANCE – 289