STANDISH — The numbers under the ‘R’ on the scoreboard told the outcome, but the numbers under the ‘E’ told the story of Thursday night’s Western D title game.

No. 1  Buckfield took advantage of five Richmond errors while committing only one miscue of its own and made it back-to-back regional titles with an 8-5 win over the third-seeded Bobcats at Mahaney Diamond.

Buckfield will face Eastern D champion Bangor Christian at noon Saturday at St. Joseph’s College in a rematch of last year’s state title game. Bangor Christian won that, 7-3.

“It feels great. Back-to-back,” said junior Owen Bennett. “We only made one error. That’s why we won today, defense.”

The Bobcats and Bucks split two regular-season meetings. Thursday’s rubber match may have come down to the fact that the Bucks played under the Mahaney spotlight last year and the Bobcats didn’t.

“We knew we had to come to play,” Buckfield coach Joe McLaughlin said. “We beat them fairly easily the last time, but it’s a whole different environment down here. We knew we had to earn it.”

Richmond didn’t put any errors in the scorebook in the four-run fourth that ultimately spelled its doom, but Bobcat fielders were too tentative on the first two hits of the inning, an infield single by Dalton Hart and a triple to left field by Jeff Pepin, that broke a 3-3 tie.

A walk and then a dropped third strike scored Pepin.  Sacrifice flies by Jared Eastman and Ben Strout made it 7-3.

“I’m not sure how many earned runs there were (two),” Richmond coach Ryan Gardner said. “We’re ahead when we don’t make errors. We had four in (the fourth) inning. They put the ball in play and made us make plays and we didn’t.”

Richmond pulled within two in the top of the sixth on a two-run single by Dakoda Roinestad (four RBIs) but could have cut the lead to one if Roinestad tagged up from third on a fly ball to right. Instead, he played it halfway and ended up stranded 90 feet away.

The mistake looked even more glaring when the Bucks plated another insurance run on a double-steal.

Jonah  Williams worked 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief to pick up the save for senior starter Garrett Hamann, who struck out eight, walked four, hit a batter, and allowed five earned runs on six hits in 5 2/3 innings.

“I have the utmost  respect for Garrett,” McLaughlin said. “He’s overcome a lot and has grown a lot. He had opportunities to get frustrated with himself and some of the bounces that weren’t going his way. I feel like he’s gained a lot of maturity the last couple of years.”

His first time through the Richmond order, Hamann fanned six. He also gave up a pair of singles in the first inning as the Bobcats took a 1-0 lead. He got the run back with an RBI double in the second.

“I had to readjust to the mound,” Hamann said. “It’s really hard up there. Our field, it’s nice and soft. At our field, my foot can slide a little bit so I can get a bigger stride. Here it just sticks. It was hard to find the umpire’s zone.”

“Having confidence (in the defense) helps me out  a lot,” he added. “I was a little unsure today with some of the kids that have never played on this field, but they stuck it out and I’m proud of them.”

Roinestad’s two-run single put the Bobcats back in front, 3-1, in the fourth. But Richmond’s sloppy defense handed the lead back with four errors in the bottom of the frame. One of those errors scored Jeff Pepin to make it 3-2, then Ben Strout tied it with an RBI single.

“The key with this team is put the ball in play,” McLaughlin said. “At this level, just put the ball in play and, more often than not, good things will happen. We have guys that can hit the ball well, but we don’t have a lot of  power. We hit the gaps, but we don’t slug. We just put the ball in play.”