BANGOR – Rangeley High School’s baseball team had never won a state championship, losing to Deer Isle-Stonington in last year’s state Class D final.

That was until Saturday.

Senior righty Ben Bliss tossed a three-hitter and junior center fielder Luke Hammond drove in what proved to be the winning run with a seventh-inning single as the Lakers beat Katahdin of Stacyville 3-2 at Mansfield Stadium.

Rangeley wound up 12-4 while Katahdin finished 16-2.

Bliss struck out six, walked five and hit two batters to outduel Katahdin’s Evan McCarthy, who fired an impressive seven-hit complete game after seeing very limited mound duty this season. He hadn’t thrown more than three innings in a previous outing due to a tender arm.

Both runs off Bliss were unearned as were two of the three off McCarthy.

McCarthy also struck out six and walked five. He threw 129 pitches including 79 strikes.

“I thought I pitched very well. I felt good on the mound today,” said Bliss. “I just tried to throw strikes and it seemed to work. I had my fastball and curve working and I threw my changeup here and there.

“My curve had a lot of drop on it today and it got a lot of their hitters off-balance,” added Bliss.

“This was definitely his best game of the year,” said Rangeley coach Mark Gordon.

Bliss has had control troubles this season, “but I found the strike zone pretty easily today. And our defense was tremendous,” he said.

Shortstop Alex Rodway handled six chances flawlessly and started an important 6-4-3 double play in the fifth, feeding fellow sophomore Ross Gordon, the second baseman.

“That was big. That was the high point of the game,” said Hammond.

Bliss threw 134 pitches of which 68 were strikes.

“He hit his spots well,” said McCarthy. “He threw enough strikes so you’d have to swing the bat. He didn’t have great accuracy but it wasn’t bad. He had a good fastball and a tight little breaking ball on which you couldn’t see the spin very well.”

“His curve wasn’t a straight- down 12-to-6 curve, it kind of slid,” said Cougars catcher and leadoff hitter Josh Guiggey. “I thought we could beat him. I thought we could have scored four or five on him. It just wasn’t our day. The top of our order, Andy [Kay] and I, didn’t hit today.”

Guiggey and No. 2 hitter Kay went 0-for-5 although each drew a walk and Kay was also hit by a pitch.

“He was tricky. He did a good job. He kept us off-balance all day,” said Katahdin coach Marty McCarthy, who had just one senior on his team.

“We made four errors and that cost us two runs. That was the ballgame right there.”

Rangeley made it 1-0 in the fifth on singles by Jordan Richard and Ross Gordon, an infield error and David Raymond’s sacrifice fly.

The Lakers upped it to 2-0 in the sixth on Bliss’s infield single, a throwing error that allowed him to continue to second, a wild pitch and Ben Morton’s RBI single.

Katahdin got one back in the bottom of the sixth on McCarthy’s base hit, a walk and an infield error, but Rangeley answered in the seventh as Raymond reached on a three-base infield throwing error and Hammond grounded a crisp single to right.

“I was looking for a pitch from the middle [of the plate] in. He threw me a fastball on the inside part of the plate and I turned on it and shot it through the infield,” said Hammond.

“I fell behind in the count [3-1] and had to throw him a fat pitch and he ripped it. He’s a good hitter,” said McCarthy.

The Cougars rallied in the bottom of the seventh as Kaleb Gallagher singled and eventually scored on a wild pitch. But with Kay, who had walked, representing the tying run on third, Bliss struck out the last hitter.

Morton and Richard had two singles apiece for the winners.

lmahoney@bangordailynews.net

990-8231

LAKERS 3, COUGARS 2

Rangeley (12-4) Katahdin (16-2)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Rodway, ss 3 0 0 0 Guiggey, c 3 0 0

Raymond, c 3 1 0 1 Kay, ss 2 0 0 0

Hammond, cf 3 0 1 1 McCarthy, p 4 0 0

Madeira, lf 3 0 0 0 R. Qualey, pr 0 1 0

B. Bliss, p 4 1 1 0 E. Qualey, cf 3 0 0

Abbott, 1b 3 0 0 0 J. McGraw, lf 3 0 0

Morton, 3b 4 0 2 1 Anderson, 1b 2 0 0

Richard, dh 2 1 2 0 M. McGraw, lf 2 0 0

Brooks, rf 0 0 0 0 Curtis, dh 1 0 0

Gordon, 2b 3 0 1 0 Hawkins, rf 1 0 0

Ka. Gallagher, 2b 2 1 0

Ko., Gallagher, dh 1 0 0

Totals 28 3 7 3 Totals 24 2 3 0

Rangeley 000 011 1 – 3

Katahdin 000 001 1 – 2

E-Morton, B. Bliss; Kay 2, Ka. Gallagher, M. McGraw; LOB-Rangeley 10, Katahdin 8; DP-Rangeley 1; SF-Raymond; SB-Hammond 2; Kay

Rangeley IP H R ER BB SO

B. Bliss (W, 4-1) 7 3 2 0 5 6

Katahdin IP H R ER BB SO

McCarthy (L, 1-1) 7 7 3 1 5 6

HBP- M. McGraw (by B. Bliss), Kay (by B. Bliss); WP- McCarthy 2; BK- B. Bliss, McCarthy; T- 2:15; ATT- 400 (est.)