BANGOR — When Jesse Colford was a freshman at Bangor High School, he was cut from the baseball team.
“I did think about quitting, and I had a couple of my friends’ dads approach me and tell to just stick with it, so I just kept going with it,” Colford said Sunday after leading Coffee News of Bangor to a 9-4 win over Yankee Ford of South Portland in the championship game of the American Legion baseball state tournament at Husson University’s Winkin Sports Complex.
It’s the Comrades’ third state title in four seasons.
“To come in and be part of three state championships in high school and to be a part of three state championships in Legion is just a testament to a lot of young kids to never give up and believe in yourself,” Coffee News Manager Dave Morris said of Colford.
“I don’t think about the past that much,” said Colford, who pitched for Husson University this spring after graduating from Bangor High last year. “I just think of everything as a growing moment for me, and I like where I’m at right now.”
Yankee Ford, the defending state champion, got 11 hits off Colford, but the tournament’s most valuable player was able to limit the damage.
Colford was pitching on three days’ rest after striking out 15 and allowing just two hits in 62/3 innings in a 4-0 win over Fayette-Staples of Saco on the opening day of the tournament.
“They kind of nickel and dimed him a little bit, but he just kept his composure,” Morris said of Yankee Ford.
“We just didn’t get the big hit, but you’ve got to give all the credit to their pitching staff,” said Yankee Ford Manager Al Livingston.
“They were tough when they needed to be.”
Coffee News hammered out 12 hits and took advantage of 10 walks and seven hit batsmen.
“No excuses,” Livingston said. “We just got a little light in our pitching staff at the end here.”
Coffee News, which went 4-1 in the five-day tournament, took a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Tyler Parke led off with a single, stole second, and scored when Ethan Stoddard doubled over the left fielder’s head. A walk and two hit batsmen produced another run.
The Comrades made it 3-0 lead in the second when it scored a run on three walks and hit batsman.
Parke opened the fourth with a walk, stole second, took third on a groundout and scored on Noah Missbrenner’s single. Stoddard drove in two runs with a fifth-inning single after the Comrades loaded the bases on two walks and a hit batsman.
Yankee Ford cut the deficit to 6-2 in the bottom of the fifth. With one out, Nate Ingalls looped a double down the left-field line and scored on Riley Hasson’s single to right.
Arlo Pike reached base on a third-strike wild pitch with two outs, and Nolan Brown dumped an RBI single into left field.
Both teams scored a run in the sixth. The Coffee News made it 9-3 in the seventh when Parke led off with a triple and Stoddard followed with a homer over the left-field fence.
Ingalls completed the scoring when he led off the bottom of the ninth with a triple and scored on a throwing error.
Earlier Sunday, Yankee Ford eliminated Coastal Landscape of Portland with an 11-2 win.
Ingalls drove in three runs with a triple and a single and Hasson drove in two runs.
Griffin Watson had three singles and three RBI for Coastal Landscape.
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