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BANGOR – Everybody in the dugout, and most of the 400 or so fans sitting in the stands at Mansfield Stadium knew what was going on, but nobody dared to talk about it.
It wasn’t the fact Lee Academy had already won its first state softball championship earlier in the day. Nor was it the baseball team’s 2-0 lead in the top of the sixth.
No, this was all about two words you never say at a baseball game when a possible one is in progress: No-hitter.
Only when the final out was recorded in Lee’s 4-0 victory over West champ Richmond in Saturday afternoon’s Class D state championship game did everyone finally exhale and shout those words to the tops of the light poles.
“Doob Dow, who’s sort of our team comedian, for the first time all year was very serious and he was saying, ‘Don’t say anything. Don’t talk about it’ and everyone knew what ‘it’ was,” said David Hainer, Lee’s second-year head coach.” He said it one time and that was it. They were still fired up and cheering, but they never used the words no-hitter.”
It was the second one of the 2006 season for pitching ace Charlie Boulrisse, but he seemed more excited to be part of Lee’s first-ever state championship baseball team.
“We lost the state game our sophomore year and in the East championship game last year so this is really great for us,” said the senior righthander. “Almost half our team members are seniors.”
Boulrisse capped an unbeaten (7-0) season for the 19-1 Pandas with a 115-pitch masterpiece in which he threw 66 percent (76) for strikes.
“I didn’t have to do too much. He didn’t throw any wild pitches at all and mostly threw them where I wanted him to,” said senior catcher Everett Houghton. “His fastball worked really well, location-wise, and he was throwing it hard. He was hitting the outside corners and going low and his curveball worked well when we needed it to keep them off-balance.”
Boulrisse struck out 12 batters and walked four, three of them in the second inning before he escaped the two-out, bases-loaded jam with a strikeout of leadoff hitter Isaiah Eagles on four pitches.
“In the second, I was slipping a bit because the mound was a little soft and I was overthrowing a little,” Boulrisse said.
Hainer never called timeout to settle his pitcher down.
“Had he walked in a run, maybe I would have gone out, but against Southern Aroostook in the quarterfinals, he walked the bases loaded and he told me it got him mad and he threw harder and got out of it, so I let him do that on his own today,” Hainer explained. “If he couldn’t get mad on his own, I might have gone out and punched him in the arm or something.”
Richmond coach Ryan Gardner wishes he had done just that – in his pitching arm.
“He was throwing strikes and getting ahead. He must have had some movement on his ball because my hitters weren’t picking it up that well,” Gardner said. “He got in that jam in the second inning, but once he got out of that, he seemed to get stronger. He just did a good job keeping my kids off-balance.”
Gardner said Boulrisse’s over-the-top, half-delivery motion was deceptive as well.
“With his motion, it seems like he’s slow, but it comes in quick,” he said. “We hadn’t seen anything like that and he used it to his advantage.”
After having pinch runner Dow thrown out on a perfect 9-3-2 relay to the plate on a medium fly ball to right field with no outs in the fourth, the Pandas got a second chance in the fifth and used it to their advantage.
After Kyle McLeod hit a one-out single to shallow left and stole second, Derek Worster drew a two-out walk and Kris King loaded the bases after getting hit by a pitch. Blaine Clark then jumped on an 0-1 changeup from pitcher Rob King and smacked it through the left side for a two-run single.
“I just tried to punch it through a hole in the infield,” said Clark. “He thew me a changeup right down the middle. It was a little off and I just slapped it through.”
Lee tacked on two more runs in the sixth thanks to two Bobcat errors, one on Houghton’s grounder to short and the other on a potential force at second that put runners at the corners with one out. King struck out the next batter, but T.J. Braley, who whacked the ball hard in two previous at-bats, but failed to get on, drilled a first-pitch fastball down the right-field line for a two-run single.
Rob King allowed just four hits and threw 53 of an efficient 80 pitches for strikes, but suffered his first loss of the season to finish 4-1.
PANDAS 4, BOBCATS 0
Richmond (17-2) Lee Academy (19-1)
Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI
Eagles, cf 4 0 0 0 King, 1b 2 0 0
King, p 3 0 0 0 Clark, 2b-ss 3 0 2
Bibber, c 3 0 0 0 Thompson, ss-2b 2 0 0
Kendrick, 1b 3 0 0 0 Dow, pr 0 0 0 0
Carter, dh 3 0 0 0 Houghton, c 3 1 0
Brown, 2b 0 0 0 0 Boulrisse, p 3 0 0
K. Lancaster, ss 2 0 0 0 Crocker, 3b 3 0
Holden, 3b 2 0 0 0 MacDonald, pr 0 1 0
B. Lancaster, rf 2 0 0 0 McLeod, lf 3 0
Nash, lf 1 0 0 0 Braley, dh 3 0 2
Linscott, rf 0 0 0 0
Crocker, pr 0 0 0 0
Worster, cf 2 1 0 0
Totals 23 0 0 0 Totals 24 4 4 4
Richmond 000 000 0 – 0
Lee 000 022 x – 4
E-Brown 2, Bibber, K. Lancaster; Thompson 3; LOB-Richmond 7; Lee 5; DP-B. Lancaster-Kendrick-Bibber; 3B-Thompson; S-Holden; SB-King; McLeod, Worster
Richmond IP H R ER BB SO
King (L,4-1) 6 4 4 2 2 3
Lee IP H R ER BB SO
Boulrisse (W,7-0) 7 0 0 0 4 12
HBP-King (by King); T-1:31; ATT-400 (est.)
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