Messalonskee and Lawrence are two of the youngest teams in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class A. They met in Monday's season opener, and Messalonskee is the better team at this point. The Eagles won, 17-3, in five innings.

Messalonskee stole nine bases, although about half of those were the automatic no-throw steals in first-and-third situations. Everyone in the Messalonskee lineup scored a run except Kristen Lawler, who had two RBI. The Eagles are at Hampden on Wednesday.

"They'll put seven, eight seniors and a junior on the field," Messalonskee coach Leo Bouchard said. "They're one of the favorites. But I'm hoping that (my players) have the confidence, knowing they can hit, they can score, they can play defensively, that they can play good enough to keep us in the game against those veteran teams."

Lawrence will struggle for a while because of inexperience. The Bulldogs started freshmen at pitcher, catcher and shortstop. They made some errors of youth on Monday, but will got better. Freshman shortstop Jess Poulin was impressive in her high school debut. Poulin batted third in the lineup and has an excellent arm and gets rid of the ball quickly. Twice she bobbled the ball but turned what looked like a one-base error into a groundout.