Belfast pitcher OK after line drive strikes head

Belfast High softball pitcher Stephanie Whittier was back in school Monday, Lions athletic director Terry Kenniston said, after a scary incident in a game Thursday.

Pitching in a key Eastern Maine Class B matchup against Winslow, Whittier took a line drive off her forehead during the third inning of the game in Belfast.

She was down in the pitching circle for a minute and the school immediately called for an ambulance. Whittier was taken to Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast.

Tests including X-rays and a CT scan performed Thursday night were negative, Kenniston said, but Whittier is being treated as if she suffered some kind of concussion. It is unknown when she will be cleared to play again.

She was out of school Friday.

Whittier traveled with the 8-4 Lions to a game at Maranacook of Readfield Monday but wasn’t expected to play. Belfast has three more games this week and Whittier will likely sit out those games, too.

Thursday’s game was pivotal for both the Lions and the Raiders, who were undefeated going into the matchup.

Belfast took a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Whittier scored one of those runs and had already hit two singles. Winslow tied it with three runs in the third.

After Whittier’s injury, which came on a hit from Winslow’s Ali Kriegel, the field was cleared and Kenniston said the umpires gave Belfast coach Chris Bartlett the option of not continuing the game considering the apparent severity of what both teams had witnessed.

“Chris got the girls together and they talked about whether they wanted to keep playing,” Kenniston said. “They wanted to keep going for her.”

Bartlett moved shortstop-backup pitcher Brooke Reed into the circle and she kept the Raiders from scoring the rest of the way. Meanwhile, the Lions scored two runs in the fifth for an eventual 5-3 win, handing the 2006 EM runner-up Raiders their first loss.

The win should give Belfast a nice boost in the Heal point standings. Last week Winslow was the top team in Eastern Maine Class B and Belfast was ranked fourth, bunched with No. 2 Ellsworth and No. 3 Medomak Valley of Waldoboro all within 3.3 points of each other. The Raiders had a 24.1-point lead on Ellsworth.

Winslow athletic director Sean Keenan called Kenniston Friday to check on Whittier.

“The [Winslow player] who hit her was a bit concerned and wanted to know how she was,” Kenniston said. “She stopped into Sean’s office to see if he could find out anything.”

Whittier was a second-team Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B all-star in basketball this season, a member of Belfast’s Class B state championship field hockey team, and was a first-team KVAC Class B all-star in softball last year.

MA starting soccer club

With about 40 students having expressed an interest, Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln is starting a soccer club for this fall that could eventually become a varsity sport.

Athletic director Rick Sinclair said the Lynx will play a junior varsity schedule with teams for both boys and girls and then evaluate the situation.

“We’ll see how strong the interest is and then go from there,” Sinclair said.

The club teams will be completely funded, including money for travel, uniforms and equipment, by the school’s boosters club.

The interested students are a mix of those already involved in sports and some who aren’t doing a fall sport.

“It may take some away from field hockey and golf, but football is football up here,” Sinclair said.

Jessica Bloch can be reached at 990-8193, 1-800-310-8600 or jbloch@bangordailynews.net.