St. Thomas outlasts Lebanon to win elusive D2 baseball title

MANCHESTER – Arran Maran didn’t know if the ball had been caught. All that mattered was that he made it home.

When the St. Thomas Aquinas High School senior saw teammate Josh Terry hit a shallow flare to left field, he went back and put his foot on third base. Head coach Marc Schoff, who also coaches third for the Saints, got as close to Maran as he could.

As soon as Schoff yelled go, Maran took off.

“In a situation like that, whether the ball goes through or it gets caught, I’ve got to play it safe and get home,” Maran said. “I was back on the base and I heard coach say ‘go,’ and I took off. I didn’t look at the ball.”

Maran didn’t look up until he safely crossed the plate, and as he did so, he tossed his helmet high in the air. A moment later, Maran was mobbed by his teammates, as they celebrated a 4-3 win in 10 innings over Lebanon on Saturday in the Division II baseball championship game at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.

The win finally gave the No. 1 Saints (19-1) the title they’ve been after for a couple of years. In 2009 and 2011, St. Thomas lost in the final to Portsmouth, and at times, it looked like defeat might happen again against No. 3 Lebanon (18-2).

“I would be a complete liar if I said that didn’t enter my mind down here when they kept coming back,” Schoff said. “There is no quit in that (Lebanon) team. Nobody deserves to lose that game. It’s just one of those things where no one deserved to lose that game. It was unbelievable.”

The Saints scored in the bottom of the second to go up 1-0, but the Raiders went ahead 2-1 with two runs in the fourth. St. Thomas retook the lead with two runs of its own in the fifth, but Lebanon responded by tying the game in the sixth.

The Raiders were poised for more in that inning, getting runners to second and third with one out, but St. Thomas starter Jordan Bean battled back to get out of the inning. Bean went nine innings for the Saints, striking out 11 and allowing two earned runs on three hits and five walks.

Lebanon starter Brady Boisvert was just as solid, going eight innings and giving up one earned run on four hits and six walks with six strikeouts. But the Raiders struggled in the field behind him, making seven errors.

Both teams had chances to win in extra innings.

With one out in the top of the eighth, the Raiders loaded the bases against Bean, but the St. Thomas senior got Jacob Davis to ground into a fielder’s choice that kept a run from scoring and then induced a groundout from Clint Goodwin to end the inning.

The Saints put two on in the bottom of the inning, with both runners advancing on a sacrifice bunt by Chris White, but Boisvert struck out the next two batters to get out of the inning.

St. Thomas again got two on in the ninth, this time with two out, but Goodwin made a great catch in left field to end the inning.

Maran reached on an error to start the 10th against Lebanon’s Colin MacNamee, who came on in relief the inning before, and with one out, Stephen Hemming’s ground ball was misplayed into an infield single.

That brought up Craig Teed, who came in to pitch in the top of the frame. Schoff guessed the senior hadn’t had an at bat in almost two years.

“I was pretty much out of hitters,” the coach said. “I had pinch hit earlier in the game and pinch ran to try to get that run.”

Teed put down a bunt that rolled along the first base line. Lebanon let the ball go, waiting for it to roll foul, but it never did and Teed beat the ball to first to load the bases.

MacNamee got behind Terry 3-0, and before the next pitch, Terry asked Schoff is he was taking.

“He said ‘take’ and he looked at me wide-eyed,” Schoff said. “I said ‘absolutely, but time it up because I want to see you mash one.’ He got a big smile on his face. The kid is so hard-nosed, he comes every day and takes extra swings at practice. He does everything right and I was so happy for him to come through. I’m just really proud of them.”