GORHAM – A swinging bunt that stops squarely on the third-base line about 30 feet from home plate.

A spinning, opposite-field hit off the bat handle struck just hard enough to escape the skin part of the infield, just inside the right-field line.

Those were the building blocks of a six-run first inning Saturday that propelled Oak Hill of Sabattus to a 7-3 victory over Bucksport in the state Class B baseball final at Gorham High School.

“There’s not much you can do about those type of things,” said Bucksport senior Adam Sheehan. “They had a lot of luck on their side, and some of our hits just didn’t fall fair.”

Sheehan was the pitching victim of those leadoff singles in the bottom of the first by Kyle Harrington and Adam Labbe, two of the four hits the Raiders had during a 10-batter uprising aided by three Bucksport errors.

Adam Shaffstall and winning pitcher Mike Daggett each had an RBI single, while Harrington added a sacrifice fly in his second at-bat of the inning. By the time it ended, Oak Hill had a 6-0 lead that was more than enough for Daggett, who began the day with an 0.34 earned run average.

“We know that no one’s going to score six runs on us,” said Bill Fairchild, Oak Hill’s baseball coach since the school’s inception in 1976. “Bucksport’s a good team, but no one has scored six runs on us. We would have had to have a complete collapse, but with the pitching we have, I thought we were in pretty good shape. All we had to do was play the D, and we’re pretty good at that.”

Oak Hill (17-3) didn’t have much subsequent offensive success against Bucksport reliever Phil Harvey, who yielded one unearned run and three hits over the final four innings.

But the Raiders did play errorless defense, and Daggett didn’t relax. He took a perfect game into the sixth inning before pinch-hitter Wade Hopkins hit a 3-1 pitch – Daggett’s first three-ball count of the game -solidly into left field for a single. Daggett’s shutout bid then ended when Hopkins scored on a two-out RBI single by Jake Knight, and Knight scored after stealing second base on Nye Gifford’s single to center to cut the Bucksport deficit to 6-2.

“It always hurts when you look up and see you’re down six, especially with a pitcher like him out there,” said Sheehan. “But we’re a fighting team. We have been all year, and we weren’t going to give up.”

Oak Hill countered with a momentum-breaking run in the bottom of the sixth, as Harrington reached on an infield single, went to second on a passed ball and came around to score on a pair of Bucksport errors, the Golden Bucks’ fifth and sixth miscues of the game.

Bucksport scored its final run in the top of the seventh when Marcus Boober was hit by a pitch, stole second and scored on a two-out single to right by Robbie Pushard before Daggett induced his 11th ground-ball out of the game to clinch Oak Hill’s first state title since 1981.

“At our first team meeting this year we brought out the championship trophies we had [from 1978 and 1981],” Fairchild said. “I said, ‘this is what you’re capable of, but this is the last time we’ll mention it; now we got to get to work.’ Today we mentioned it again, but that was it.”

Daggett, one of only two seniors on the Oak Hill roster, finished with four strikeouts and no walks during a complete-game four-hitter. The right-hander, who switched to a sidearming motion at the outset of the playoffs, threw 87 pitches while improving to 9-1.

“You’ve just got to give their pitcher credit,” said Sheehan, one of 11 seniors on the Bucksport roster. “He was just constantly hitting that outside corner, and that will take any team down; you never really get that pitch that you can drive. He didn’t hang too many over the plate, and when he did we didn’t really take advantage of it.”

The Bucks, whose 12-game winning streak ended in the state final, finished their season with a 15-5 record.

“I’m not going to let one inning ruin what these guys have accomplished,” said Bucksport coach Mike Cowing, whose team rebounded from a 1-3 start this spring. “They turned it around, got on a roll and had a heck of a season. One inning doesn’t take away from that. It’s tough, because you get here and you want to win, but they’ve had a great year.”

Raiders 7, Golden Bucks 3

Bucksport (15-5) Oak Hill (17-3)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Knight, cf 3 1 1 1 Harrington, cf 3 2 1

Gifford,ss-3b 3 0 1 1 Labbe, ss 4 0

Sheehan,p-ss 2 1 0 0 Shaffstall, 3b 4 1 1

Boober, c 3 0 0 0 Duchette, 1b 3 1 0

Pelletier, lf 3 0 0 0 Guerette, 2b 2 1

Pushard, dh 3 0 1 1 M. Daggett, p 1 1 1

Jackson, 2b 2 0 0 0 Behrue 1 0 0 0

Hopkins 1 1 1 0 N. Eaton, lf 3 0 0

Carmichael, 3b 1 0 0 0 Lunn, c 2 0 1

P. Harvey, p 1 0 0 0 M. Eaton, dh 3 0 1

Wentworth, 1b 2 0 0 0

Totals 24 3 4 3 Totals 26 7 8 6

a-struck out for M. Daggett in 5th; b-hit by pitch for Lunn in 5ht, c-singled for Jackson in 6th

Bucksport 000 002 1 ? 3

Oak Hill 600 001 x ? 7

E?Jackson 3, Sheehan, Gifford, Lunn; LOB? Bucksport 1, Oak Hill 6; 2B? N. Eaton; DP?Knight-Wentworth, Harvey-Sheehan-Wentworth, Boober unassisted; SF?Harrington; SB?Knight, Sheehan, Pushard; Shaffstall

Bucksport IP H R ER BB SO

Sheehan (L,4-2) 2 5 6 3 3 2

P. Harvey 4 3 1 0 0 3

Oak Hill IP H R ER BB SO

M. Daggett (W,9-1) 7 4 3 3 0 4

HBP?Sheehan by M. Daggett; B. Eaton by P. Harvey; WP?P. Harvey;PB?Boober; Lunn; T?1:50; ATT?800