CAPE ELIZABETH – Kyle Piscopo connected with the ball, and as he ran toward first base he watched to see where it would land.
A little to one side of the right-field line, and the Cape Elizabeth baseball team would still be locked in a tense, extra-inning battle with Greely.
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A little to the other side, and the Capers would be headed to the Western Class B final.
The ball landed a few inches inside the line, and Derek Roberts crossed home plate with the winning run in the bottom of the eighth to give top-ranked Cape Elizabeth a 4-3 win over No. 5 Greely, the defending state champion.
“Stay fair,” Piscopo said when asked what he was thinking while the ball was in the air. “Stay fair. That’s all that was going through my head at that point.”
It was the third hit of the game for Piscopo.
Greely Coach Derek Soule had a different take on Piscopo’s third hit of the game.
“I was thinking, ‘get foul,’ ” Soule said. “Get foul, but he did a good job. He reached out, got the bat on it, and it’s just one of those things.”
Cape (17-1) will play No. 2 Yarmouth at 7 p.m. Wednesday at St. Joseph’s College in Standish. Yarmouth beat Lincoln Academy, 6-2.
A day after a 3-0 quarterfinal win over Oak Hill, the Capers returned to Holman Field to face the Rangers (11-7).
It was the third time the teams have met this season, and the second straight year Cape hosted Greely for a regional semifinal.
A year ago, Greely won 1-0 in 10 innings on Matt Labbe’s RBI single.
“I knew it wasn’t going to come easy this year,” Piscopo said. “I knew it was going to be hard-fought.
“They’re a good team. They always come through in the clutch.”
The Capers took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third on Will Pierce’s two-run homer, but Greely cut the deficit in half in the top of the fourth when Mark Dominick grounded into a fielder’s choice with the bases loaded, driving home Ben Shain.
Two innings later, the Rangers tied the game on Ben Russell’s RBI single. Cape then regained the lead in the bottom of the inning on Piscopo’s sacrifice fly, which drove in Jack Barber.
Greely forced extra innings when Labbe singled home pinch runner Sean Ross in the seventh.
“Cape’s a very strong team, and the only thing we talked about before the game was that we were going to battle to the end, no matter what happened,” Soule said. “And the guys did that. From the first pitch to the last pitch, they battled.”
The same could be said for the Capers.
“We never get down,” Piscopo said. “We’re always fighting, even if we get behind.”
Staff Writer Rachel Lenzi can be reached at 791-6415 or at:
rlenzi@pressherald.com
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