North Yarmouth Academy’s softball team burst on to the scene a year ago, as the program returned to varsity play in the biggest and best way possible, by winning an unexpected and first Class D state championship.
This spring, the Panthers did it again, perhaps even more impressively, as they had to scratch and claw for their lives in both the regional and state finals last week.
NYA, which went 18-1 a year ago, beating Machias, 7-1, in the state game, returned almost everyone from that team and was expected to dominate and didn’t disappoint.
The Panthers won 15 of 16 regular season games, losing only to Sacopee Valley by a run in the first game of a doubleheader before prevailing in the nightcap.
“The loss to Sacopee Valley needed to happen,” said NYA coach Ricky Doyon. “We didn’t like it, but I said to the girls, ‘What are you going to do about it?’”
NYA outscored the opposition, 172 runs to 33 and won by the 10-run mercy rule on eight occasions.
As the top seed in Class D South, the Panthers dispatched No. 8 Greenville (15-0, in three-innings) in the quarterfinals, then ousted No. 4 Carrabec (12-2, in six-innings) in the semifinals.
Last Tuesday, at St. Joseph’s College, NYA got pushed to the wire by No. 2 Buckfield in the regional final, but survived, 2-1, pushing across the winning run in the bottom of the seventh. Kailyn McIntyre, who scored the team’s first run in the first inning on a single from Jordan Nash, reached on a one-out single, stole second and came home on Hayden Wienckowski’s single to end it in walk-off fashion.
“To start, I was looking to get on base and go from there and see what happens,” McIntyre said. “I was hoping Hayden would smoke it, and once I am on base, I know I am going.”
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