BANGOR, Maine —- Husson University junior shortstop Lyndsay Merrill loves to play softball.

And even after losing a front tooth when applying a tag on an attempted steal of second in a March 9 game in Winter Haven, Florida, Merrill composed herself and finished the game.

Not only did she finish it, she went 2-for-4 and scored a run in the 4-2 loss to Simpson College of Iowa, the nation’s 13th-ranked NCAA Division III team.

Husson didn’t play the next day so Merrill wound up getting a root canal an hour away in Lakeland.

She never missed a game on the spring trip and wound up hitting a robust .389, which was second best on the team behind her senior sister Kayla (.441).

“I definitely didn’t want to come out,” said Lyndsay Merrill, who estimated that she lost two-thirds of her tooth when the visor of the base stealer’s helmet “slammed into my mouth.

“It wasn’t bleeding a lot. I told Coach [Terren Hall] I didn’t want to come out, Coach said ‘Are you sure?” and I said ‘yeah,” Merrill added.

“She held her own. She didn’t even cry. She’s a very tough kid. She didn’t miss a beat,” Hall said.

Merrill said her mouth didn’t hurt when it first occurred “but a lot of the nerve was exposed and when I took a deep breath, it hurt. So I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the game.”

She said she made the mistake of taking a drink of cold water in the dugout “and that hurt even worse.

“Darci told me not to do that again,” grinned Merrill, referring to Husson trainer Darci Dickison.

Dickison was attending to a woman in the stands when Merrill got hurt. The woman was hit in the temple by a softball from a game on another field in the multi-field complex.

“When the EMTs [Emergency Medical Technicians] showed up to take care of the woman, I asked them if they knew of any good dentists in the area,” said Dicksion.

The woman wasn’t seriously hurt, Dickison added.

Merrill was taken to a dentist near the complex the next day by her parents, Jim and Mary, but the dentist recommended that she see an endodontist, a specialist who deals with injuries of the dental pulp and nerve.

They drove to Lakeland to see an endodontist and have the root canal.

“They stayed open late because they considered it a medical emergency. But it didn’t take very long. It felt good. They took out the whole root so all the feeling was gone,” explained Merrill.

The Bethel native called her dentist in Norway and he suggested that she wear a mouthguard for the rest of the trip and she heeded his advice.

Shortly after returning from the trip, she had her dentist install a temporary crown “because I didn’t want to go to class without a front tooth.

“It came out good. I’m going back to my dentist on April 14 to get a permanent crown. I’m excited about that,” said Merrill.

Her teammates weren’t the least bit surprised that she kept playing after losing her tooth and didn’t miss the game the rest of the trip..

“She’s a tough girl and softball is her life. She’s a competitor. She never comes out,” said junior left fielder Allie Hill.

Sophomore second baseman Nicole Andrade was standing next to Merrill and was confused when she first saw Merrill holding something in her hand.

“She said she lost her tooth. I said ‘oh-oh’ and Darci came running over. I was so surprised. I didn’t think the girl hit her that hard but apparently she did,” said Andrade. “Lyndsay is such a tough player. Props to Lyndsay for staying in and finishing the game.”

So what became of the broken tooth?

“My mom has it. I told her she didn’t really need to keep it but she wanted to,” smiled Merrill.