STANDISH – For five innings Saturday, it just wasn’t Alex Gallant’s day.

Twice he had been to the plate, and twice he had been fooled by the changing speeds of Portland lefthander Ian Boyle.

But Gallant learned from those early frustrations – and led the Bangor High baseball team to a state championship.

The junior left fielder hit a two-run homer off Boyle in the sixth and a two-out single off reliever Joe Fessenden in the top of the seventh to drive in the game-winning run as Bangor rallied past previously undefeated Portland 4-3 in the state final Saturday at Saint Joseph’s College.

“Boyle’s got a great offspeed pitch that fooled me the first couple of times,” said Gallant. “But the third time up we were supposed to wait for a strike and time it up, which I was able to do, luckily.”

The win gave 18-2 Bangor its ninth state championship overall and its first since 1997.

“Your goal is always to get here,” said senior first baseman Scott Hackett, “but realistically it’s tough. I don’t know if we were ever confident enough that we knew we were going to get here, but we stayed with it and it paid off.”

Senior righthander Kyle Leeman earned the pitching victory with four innings of three-hit, one-run relief in support of starter Jim Cox.

“We’ve been down a lot during the year, and we always come back,” said Leeman. “We were sitting in the dugout today saying we were going to get some runs. We felt real good about our chances because we can always count on the middle of the lineup to come through.”

Gallant’s homer followed a bloop single by catcher Gordon Webb and an opposite-field double by Hackett that one-hopped the left-field fence to drive home pinch runner Tom Crews and pull Bangor within 2-1.

Gallant got ahead in the count 3-1 before pulling a changeup beyond the left-field fence.

“Scotty told me, ‘You know I’m going to get on base, you know we’re going to come through,'” said Gallant, “and I believed him for every second. He got his pitch and stroked it, and then I got a pitch to hit.”

Bangor’s 3-2 lead was short-lived, as Portland tied the game with two out in the bottom of the inning on John Moran’s RBI double to right.

Portland reliever B.J. Foley hit Kyle Vanidestine with a 1-0 fastball to open the Bangor seventh. Fessenden relieved Foley, and Ben Estabrook sacrificed Vanidestine to second. Webb was issued an intentional walk, and Vanidestine sneaked into third with a stolen base as Hackett struck out for the second out.

Up came Gallant, who stroked the fourth consecutive curveball he saw from Fessenden into right field to give Bangor a 4-3 lead.

“I don’t know how, but I saw it out of his hand that it was going to be a curveball so I kept my hands back and waited to get a piece of it,” Gallant said.

Portland leadoff hitter Joey Martin doubled to center to open the Portland seventh, but failed to advance to third when Craig DeFilllip bunted back to Leeman for the first out. Leeman then struck out John O’Brion and got Fessenden to pop out to Hackett to end the game and launch the Rams into celebration mode.

“That’s the best team we’ve played, and we didn’t give them anything,” said Portland coach Mike Rutherford. “They beat us with the bat and they beat us with the kids that pitched. O’Brion and Fessenden are our two best hitters, and we had two chances to knock in a run but didn’t get it done.”

Portland (18-1) took a 2-0 first-inning lead off Cox, a rally that started after two were out. O’Brion walked on a 3-2 pitch that had Cox, Webb and several other Bangor players walking toward the dugout believing the inning was over.

Fessenden then grounded a single to left, the first of three straight Portland hits, as Anthony Fasulo (3-for-3) and David Nealley followed with RBI singles.

“It did bother Jimmy a little because he knew that pitch was a strike,” said Webb, “but he came back and pitched his heart out and shut down one of the best hitting teams around.”

Cox faced the minimum six batters over the next two innings before Leeman came on after Fasulo singled and Nealley walked to open the Portland fourth.

Leeman got out of the jam by throwing out Fasulo at third on a bunt by Devin McNeill, getting Moran on a grounder to first and retiring Scott Nappi on a grounder to third to end the inning.

And while Leeman kept the Portland batters in check until the seventh, Bangor’s offense gradually grew familiar with Boyle’s change of pace.

Bangor’s first threat came in the third, when Ryan Jones one-hopped a one-out double off the left-field fence and went to third on a Vanidestine groundout. But Boyle kept his shutout intact as Nappi made a nice running catch on a blooper to center by Estabrook to end the inning.

“I thought that by the end of the game we’d hit whoever was throwing, which we did,” said Bangor coach Jeff Fahey. “It wasn’t unlike a lot of games we’ve had where we battled right down to the end. We preached to the kids all week that it was going to be just like our first Brewer game this year. It would be a battle early, and Cox would keep us in the game and Kyle would come in and save it for us, and it was almost to a T what happened.

“But it was a little closer than I would have liked.”

RAMS 4, BULLDOGS 3

Bangor (18-2) Portland (18-1)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Vanidestine, rf 3 1 0 0 Martin, rf 4 0

Estabrook, dh 3 0 0 0 DeFillip, ss 2 0

Cox, p 0 0 0 0 O’Brion, 2b 2 1 0

Webb, c 3 0 2 0 Fessenden, dh-p 3 1 0

Crews, pr 0 1 0 0 Boyles, p 0 0 0

Hackett, 1b 3 1 1 1 Foley, p 0 0 0

Gallant, lf 4 1 2 3 Fasulo, 1b 3 0 1

Edwards, ss 4 0 0 0 Nealley, c 2 0 1

Walton, 3b 3 0 1 0 McNeill, 3b 3 1 0

Barron, cf 3 0 1 0 Moran, lf 3 0 1

Jones, 2b 3 0 1 0 Nappi, cf 3 0 0

Totals 29 4 8 4 Totals 25 3 7 3

Bangor 000 003 1 – 4

Portland 200 001 0 – 3

E-DeFillip; LOB-Bangor 8, Portland 7; 2B-Hackett, Barron; Martin, Moran; HR-Gallant; DP-Walton-Hackett; S- Estabrook

Bangor IP H R ER BB SO

Cox 3 4 2 2 3 2

Leeman (W,7-0) 4 3 1 1 1 2

Portland IP H R ER BB SO

Boyle 5 2/3 6 3 3 1 4

Foley (L,0-1) 1/3 1 1 1 0 0

Fessenden 1 1 0 0 1 2

HBP-Vanidestine (by Foley); WP-Cox; PB-Nealley; T- 2:02; ATT- 750