HERMON – Hermon High School senior first baseman Cory Archer knew what to expect from Presque Isle High School righthander Kyle Gagnon when he stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs in the second inning of their Eastern Maine Class B semifinal Saturday.

“Coach [Mark Farnham] told us to watch for a first-pitch fastball so that’s what I was looking for,” said Archer who promptly drilled one over center fielder Derrek Belanger’s head to clear the bases and lead the Hawks to a 12-2 five-inning triumph.

That erased a 2-1 deficit and gave the Hawks the lead for good.

Second seed Hermon, now 14-4, will meet top seed Winslow, 15-3, in Wednesday’s 7 p.m. Eastern B final at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor.

Third seed Presque Isle finished at 11-7.

“I thrive on fastballs. That one was right down the middle,” said Archer who now has a team-high 16 RBIs on 15 hits.

“It was a low fastball. I tried not to feed it to him,” said Gagnon, who was victimized by three errors that resulted in 10 unearned runs.

He didn’t help his cause with eight walks and two hit batsmen.

“Unearned runs,” said Presque Isle coach Tim Olore. “You can’t give teams more than three outs in an inning because it comes back to bite you. And we had trouble finding the strike zone. You can’t keep pitching behind [in the count].”

“We gave them a few extra outs and they made us pay for it,” said PI catcher Chris Parsons.

Hermon senior righthander Billy Bart turned in a solid performance.

He scattered four hits with both runs being unearned. He struck out five and walked just one while throwing a tidy 69 pitches of which 42 were strikes.

“[If I had to grade myself] I’d give myself a B or a B-minus,” said Bart. “I threw pretty good. My curve was dropping in pretty good and my fastball felt good in the last inning.

“I had good defense behind me today. It was a good team win,” Bart added.

The Hawks’ only error was made by Bart and that opened the door for Presque Isle’s two second-inning runs.

But Archer answered in the bottom of the second after a two-out infield error extended the inning.

Hermon added two in the fourth on singles by Phil Cayford and Brett Danforth, a walk and a wild pitch that produced two runs when the throw from Parsons eluded Gagnon and was then misplayed behind him.

Hermon scored six in the fifth to end it and all of the runs were unearned due to a throwing error on David Wilder’s lead-off grounder.

Wilder moved to second on a groundout, went to third on Nate Ellis pop-fly single to center and scored on Bart’s groundout.

Cayford was intentionally walked and Archer was hit by a pitch to load the bases before Danforth beat out a slow roller for an RBI single, Jason Shorey walked to force in another run and Brian McGinley ended it with a bases-clearing double off reliever Danny Michaud that sliced away from diving right fielder Chad Lavway.

“I was 0-for-3 when I went up there and I felt I needed to make contact,” said McGinley. “He threw me an outside fastball and I hit it the other way.”

Danforth had three singles for Hermon while Cayford and Ellis had two apiece.

Lavway had two singles for PI.

HAWKS 12, WILDCATS 2

Presque Isle (11-7) Hermon (14-4)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

Cole, 1b 3 0 0 0 Ellis, cf 4 1 0

Lavway, rf 2 0 2 0 Bart, p 3 2 0 1

Gagnon, p 2 0 0 0 Cayford, ss 2 3 0

Parsons, c 1 1 1 0 Archer, 1b 2 1 3

McGlinn, pr 0 0 0 0 Danforth, 2b 3 2 2

Morrison, dh 2 0 0 0 Joy, dh 2 0 0 0

King, ss 0 0 0 0 Shorey, 3b 0 1 1

Belanger, cf 1 1 0 0 McGinley, c 4 0 3

Dickinson, cf 0 0 0 0 Wilder, lf 1 0

Lyford, 2b 1 0 1 1 Jalburt, rf 3 0 0

Mathers, 3b 2 0 0 0

Swanson, lf 2 0 0 0

Michaud, p 0 0 0 0

Totals 16 2 4 1 Totals 24 12 9 10

Presque Isle 020 00 ? 2

Hermon 130 26 ? 12

E? Lyford 2, King; Bart; LOB? Presque Isle 3, Hermon 8 2B? Archer, McGinley; DP? Shorey-Danforth-Archer; S? Belanger, Lyford; SB? Danforth, Joy, Wilder

Presque Isle IP H R ER BB SO

Gagnon (L, 5-4) 4 2/3 8 12 2 8 4

Michaud 0 1 0 0 0 0

Hermon IP H R ER BB SO

Bart (W, 5-2) 5 4 2 0 1 5

HBP? Archer 2 by Gagnon; WP? Gagnon; T? 1:40; ATT? 150 (est.)