Baseball: Monmouth tops Bucksport to win Class C state championship

GORHAM — The first Class C baseball state championship for Monmouth didn’t come without its nervy moments, but Sam Calder never yielded.

The Mustang junior tossed a complete-game shutout Tuesday, leading Monmouth to a 3-0 win over defending state champion Bucksport at Ed Flaherty Field on the University of Southern Maine campus. Calder allowed only four hits while striking out six, while older brother Manny Calder went 2 for 3 at the plate with a two-run single in the third inning as Monmouth capped a 19-1 season.

“This feels great,” Sam Calder said. “They told me all year to just go out there and trust my defense, trust my teammates. That’s what I did and it worked out.”

Sam Calder found himself in trouble early and often against the Bucks (13-7), never more treacherously than loading the bases with one out in the top of the first. Calder compounded the threat with his own throwing error on a comebacker that should have been a double play, but he struck out the side to keep Bucksport off the board.

Two innings later, with the leadoff hitter on again against him, Calder fielded another comebacker and turned that into a seamless 1-4-3 double play to clear the basepaths and preserve Monmouth’s early 1-0 lead.

“I was definitely nervous (at the start),” Calder admitted. “After the first inning, I just settled in a little more.”

Monmouth head coach Eric Palleschi never doubted his ace.

“You come out in that first inning and get punched in the gut right off,” Palleschi said. “It could have gone really bad right there. But that’s what Sam does, once he got out of that, he was quite the magician.”

Bucksport got the leadoff man on in four of seven innings against Calder but could not cash in on any of its opportunities — none of which was better than that first inning chance.

“That’s just the way the game goes sometimes,” Bucksport coach Josh Jackson said. “It was just one of those days where we couldn’t get the hit when we needed it. Sam pitched a great game for them. He just kept us off-balance all day.”

In the third inning, Monmouth put runners at first and second with nobody out. And after Gavyn Holyoke nearly pitched the Bucks out of harm, Manny Calder drilled a base hit to right to plate both Kyle Palleschi and Matt Marquis for a 3-0 Mustangs lead.

Holyoke then retired the next eight Monmouth batters in order, but it was too little too late. Despite allowing only five hits and striking out seven against only a pair of walks, the junior was tagged with the loss.

“Gav pitched fantastic,” Jackson said. “It was just one of those days.”

Monmouth’s Kyle Palleschi pitches against Mt. Abram during a baseball game last month in Monmouth. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Where Bucksport struggled to manufacture runs, Monmouth did just that in the home half of the first to open the scoring.

Palleschi drew a leadoff walk, went all the way to third on Luke Harmon’s one-out single to right and then scored on a wild pitch.

Behind Calder on the mound, the Mustang defense was sublime.

The South regional champions churned out two double plays in the infield and running catches in both right field (Harmon) and left field (Brandon Smith). Harmon’s catch ended the Bucksport fourth inning with a runner in scoring position, and Palleschi snared a line drive at second to end the seventh and final inning.

While he was quick to defer to his teammates behind him, Sam Calder did plenty himself — including stranding another Buck in scoring position with a strikeout to end the fifth, after an 0-2 count turned full and needed that one extra ounce from the righty to work out of the jam.

“I don’t know if you can ever have enough runs in a game like that,” said Eric Palleschi, whose team eked out a 1-0 win over Sacopee Valley in the regional final last week. “But I was confident in Sam and in the defense from our kids.”