MPA moves Class A tourney sites

BANGOR – Citing geographical considerations for the schools involved, the Maine Principals’ Association on Tuesday decided to move today’s Eastern Maine Class A baseball and softball championship games from Mansfield Stadium in Bangor and Coffin Field in Brewer to Augusta.

In addition, the Class A baseball and softball state finals slated for Saturday at Mansfield Stadium and Coffin Field have been moved to Augusta.

The revised Eastern A championship game schedule has the baseball game between No. 2 Oxford Hills of South Paris and No. 5 Edward Little of Auburn at 5 p.m. today at Morton Field, with the softball game between No. 8 Cony of Augusta and No. 3 Messalonskee of Oakland at Cony Park at 7 p.m.

Saturday’s state finals will be played at the same sites beginning at 4 p.m.

Ironically, the time periods vacated by the Eastern A championships will be filled by games originally scheduled for Tuesday night but postponed due to rain. The Eastern D baseball final between Lee Academy and Deer Isle-Stonington has been rescheduled for 3 p.m. today at Mansfield Stadium, while the Eastern B softball matchup between Bucksport and Winslow will be played at 7 p.m. at Coffin Field.

MPA executive director Dick Durost said he and assistant directors Larry LaBrie and Jeff Sturgis began discussing moving the Eastern A games on Monday morning and made the decision early Tuesday after securing the Augusta locations.

Durost said the primary consideration was that all four schools involved were at least an hour away from Bangor and Brewer by bus, or closer to two hours in the cases of the Oxford Hills and Edward Little baseball teams.

“We started having the conversation about what that was going to do to the ability for the fans, parents, and beyond to get up here to see either one of those games,” Durost said.

Durost also acknowledged the financial element of small crowds making the long trip to Bangor and Brewer – either for the EM finals or the state championship games.

“We did have to have the conversation around the financial impact of the fact that nobody was going to be here,” said Durost. “It’s in no way disrespectful to either of these two sites, but when we looked at where the four teams were coming from, and then recognizing that on Saturday the winners of each of those games are going to have to come back up here as the home team and have someone from Portland south come up as the visiting team, reluctantly after taking about a day and a half to look at it, we felt it was a necessary change.”

Durost said if any team closer to the Bangor area had qualified for the EM finals, the games would have remained at their original locations.

“This is certainly a unique situation, because I don’t think in the past we’ve had a situation where we haven’t had at least one team from the Greater Bangor area or at Newport north involved in either the baseball or softball championships,” he said. “And then you look at the extreme distances Edward Little and Oxford Hills would have had to travel, as well as Cony and Messalonskee, and it seemed like the responsible thing to do to see if there was an option that made more sense given these unique circumstances.”

As a result, the EM softball final will be played on Cony’s home field, because the MPA couldn’t get sufficient access to a softball field adjacent to where the baseball final will be played due to previously scheduled youth contests, and officials wanted to keep the two games as close together as possible.

And while the game is on Cony’s home field, Messalonskee will be the home team.

“Our second option to keep them reasonably close was to have it at Cony High School,” Durost said. “Yes, it’s the home field of Cony. But one could make the argument that Brewer could have played on its home field in the championship game if circumstances had worked out for them, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility to have a team play a championship game on its home field.”

This marks the second straight year the Class A baseball state championship game has been moved. Last year, the final between Deering of Portland and Mount Ararat of Topsham was moved from Gorham High School to Hadlock Field in Portland because of the heavy interest in the contest – particularly Mount Ararat pitcher Mark Rogers, who went on to become the fifth pick in the first round of the 2004 amateur draft by the Milwaukee Brewers.

More than 6,700 turned out for that game, won by Deering 4-1.