Noble baseball shocks another top seed in A South
PORTLAND — Noble High’s baseball team turned a comfortable early lead into a dramatic victory, defeating second-seeded Cheverus 11-8 in a Class A South semifinal Saturday in Portland and punching a ticket to the regional final.
The Knights, seeded 10th, built an 8-0 advantage by the third inning but saw the No. 2 Stags storm back with six runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth to knot the score at 8-8. Noble answered in the seventh with three insurance runs, capped by a clutch hit from leadoff hitter Alec Hale, and held on for the win.
Cheverus, improving to 14-4, had erased a five-run deficit against Noble during the regular season and rallied to win each time. The Stags’ latest comeback attempt featured a six-run fourth highlighted by two-out run-scoring hits from Joe Mancini and Jackson Holmes, the latter a two-run double. Will Baker followed with an RBI double in the fifth to pull Cheverus even.
Noble’s offense was built on balance and execution. Dillon May collected four hits and sparked a four-run second inning with an RBI single, the finish to a rally started by singles from Caiden Barnes and Wesley Turnbull. Carl Gregoire, Sean Sullivan, Evan Ballard and Alec Hale laid down four consecutive bunts in the second frame, with Sullivan’s suicide squeeze driving in the game’s second run. The bunt sequence exemplified a strategic approach that had been erratic this season but clicked at the crucial moment.
Wesley Turnbull was a dual-threat, delivering a two-run single in the fourth after Travis Cole’s RBI single and a bunt single by Owen Orlando, and then taking the mound for a complete-game effort. Working around a pair of hits in the sixth and stranding a runner at third in the seventh, Turnbull preserved Noble’s lead and also earned the victory.
“They executed it. I don’t know if there was a play we could have made. We knew what was coming,” said Cheverus coach Ryan Copp. “They perfectly placed bunts, and sometimes that’s the way it goes.”
Alec Hale, the son of Noble head coach Adam Hale, went 2-for-2 with two walks, three RBI and two runs. His seventh-inning double to right center drove in the go-ahead run.
“You’re thinking playoff baseball, you’re thinking about moving on,” Hale said. “I don’t want to go home. I want to keep playing baseball. We believe. We believe in each other. And we believe in the coaches, and we’re just going to go out and play baseball.”
The victory advances Noble (10-8-1) to a regional final Tuesday at the University of Southern Maine. It will be the Knights’ first regional championship appearance since 2002, when a squad led by Adam Hale fell to Portland. The program’s improbable run from the 10th seed, featuring three straight road playoff wins by dramatic margins, kept the momentum going into the next stage.
Cheverus closes its season at 14-4 after a valiant rally that fell just short.
