STANDISH – The Mount Desert Island baseball team had its chance against talented Gorham lefthander Mark Schmidt.

A run in, the bases loaded and still no one out in the second inning of Saturday’s Class B state championship game gave the Trojans hope of knocking off the undefeated Rams.

But Schmidt and Gorham are not both unbeaten by chance, and after they escaped that jam while allowing just one more run, the Rams dominated the remainder of the game and went on to a 7-2 victory at Saint Joseph’s College.

“That was big,” said MDI coach Mike Clark of his team’s second-inning uprising. “If we could have gotten one or two more, it’s a different ballgame. We probably would have had Schmidt on the ropes and gotten him out of there.”

The win gives 20-0 Gorham its first state title since 1998, in the program’s final Class B game before moving to Class A in all sports beginning next fall.

MDI, which rose from the No. 5 seed in Eastern B to win its first regional title, finishes 12-8.

“We had a lot of fun this year,” said senior first baseman Marcus Maffucci. “It seemed like the season lasted forever. We’ve done something our team hasn’t done before and we’re all proud that we were able to get this far.”

Maffucci walked to open the MDI second, went to third on a double by Kyle Shea and scored on Dan Lyons’ single to center. Sam Merrill then singled to load the bases with no outs before Schmidt got Mike Hamlin to ground into a 6-4-3 double play that scored Shea and ended the inning by getting Dustin Dunn to hit a comebacker to the mound.

“I feel so confident because I can throw ground balls and know plays are going to be made,” said Schmidt, a junior who struck out seven and walked three. “In that case, I threw a ground ball and we made a double play, and they got only one more, which was a lot better than all three scoring.”

Indeed, MDI had a 2-0 lead, but against a Gorham team that scored 180 runs in its first 19 victories this spring, it wouldn’t be enough.

And Schmidt (11-0 this spring, 18-0 for his career) would one-hit the Trojans the rest of the way.

“He’s a starting pitcher with that mentality of going seven, and I think he tried to conserve some energy early on, and they’re a good team and they made him pay for that,” said Gorham coach Rocky Myers. “Sometimes when he gives up a couple of runs like that, he gets irritated enough at himself that he isn’t going to let them score too many more.”

Gorham began its comeback almost immediately, when Chris Donaldson lofted a one-out homer to right off MDI starter Andy Pooler in the bottom of the second to pull the Rams within 2-1.

“All year when someone scores, we answer right back,” Schmidt said. “[Donaldson] hasn’t hit a home run all season, but he’s been our clutch guy. Even though it wasn’t the winning run, it got us started, and everyone started hitting after that.”

Gorham combined three straight hits with an error to take the lead in the third. Craig Nicely hit a one-out single and moved to third when leadoff hitter John Burnheimer (3 for 4, 3 runs scored) doubled to left-center. Jake Blaisdell singled home Nicely, and Burnheimer scored the go-ahead run when the ball was bobbled in the outfield.

Pooler was lifted for Merrill after Nicely and Burnheimer singled and Blaisdell was hit by a pitch to open the fifth. Nicely was thrown out by Lyons while trying to steal, but Burnheimer scored on a pair of wild pitches to extend Gorham’s lead to 4-2.

“I left it all out there, and they hit everything,” said Pooler, who will play baseball at Saint Joseph’s next year. “They’re a good team. They’re 20-0 for a reason, state champs for a reason. We gave them everything we could.”

The Rams added three insurance runs in the sixth, capitalizing on two MDI errors, a hit batter, a balk, a walk and an infield hit by Burnheimer.

“It wasn’t like us to come out and make three errors,” said Clark. “We’ve been pretty solid throughout the playoffs, we only made one error and that was questionable. We had to stay on top of them. We had them on the ropes in the second and we didn’t stay hungry.”

RAMS 7, TROJANS 2

MDI (12-8) Gorham (20-0)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Pooler, p-ss 3 0 0 0 Burnheimer, 3b 4 3 0

Willis, ss-3b 2 0 0 0 Blaisdell, 2b 3 1

Grover, rf 3 0 0 0 Schmidt, p 4 0 0

Maffucci, 1b 2 1 1 0 Thayer, lf 2 0 0

Shea, 2b 3 1 1 0 Donaldson, 1b 3 1 1

Lyons, c 2 0 1 1 Tole, c 2 1 0 0

Merrill, 3b-p 3 0 1 0 Sturgis, dh 0 1

Hamlin, lf 2 0 0 0 Barks, rf 0 0 0

Dunn, cf 2 0 0 0 Woodbrey, rf 0 0 0

MacDonald, ss 2 1 0 0

Nicely, cf 3 1 2 0

Walker, pr 0 0 0 0

Totals 22 2 4 1 Totals 23 7 9 3

MDI 020 000 0 – 2

Gorham 012 013 x – 7

E-Grover, Merrill 2; MacDonald; LOB-MDI 2, Gorham 5; 2B-Shea; Burnheimer; HR-Donaldson; DP-MacDonald-Blaisdell-Donaldson, MacDonald-Donaldson; SF-Sturgis; SB-Donaldson, Thayer, Burnheimer

MDI IP H R ER BB SO

Pooler (L,4-6) 4 1/3 8 3 3 2 2

Merrill 1 2/3 1 4 1 2 0

Gorham IP H R ER BB SO

Schmidt (W,11-0) 7 4 2 2 3 7

HBP-Blaisdell by Pooler, Tole by Merrill; WP-Merrill 2; BK-Merrill; T-1:40; ATT-500