And then there was one.
While the Frontier and Greenfield baseball teams saw their season come to an end in the MIAA Div. 5 quarterfinals, the Pioneer baseball team was able to earn a win to keep their season alive on the road.
Taking on No. 4 Hopedale, the fifth-seeded Panthers held the Blue Raiders to just one run, with Hugh Cyhowski pitching all seven innings and getting strong defensive play behind him to earn a 3-1 road victory and earn a spot in the semifinals.
Waiting for them in the semis? A team just a half hour away down I-91.
It looked like Hopkins Academy and Pioneer were on a collision course toward a matchup in the Western Mass. Class D finals, as the Panthers were the No. 1 seed and the Golden Hawks the second-seeded squad.
Ware had other ideas, knocking out Hopkins in the semis and then Pioneer in the finals.
Instead, following a pair of road wins in the quarterfinal round, the Panthers and the Golden Hawks will play after all, with a spot in the MIAA Div. 5 state championship game on the line when they square off on Tuesday at MacKenzie Field in Holyoke. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m.
“We’re excited and we know we’re playing a good team,” Pioneer coach Kevin Luippold said. “Their coach [Dan Vreeland] has made it to a bunch of state championship games so they will know how to keep their composure. We’ve learned from our loss to Ware in the Western Mass. championship game that we can’t go in expecting anything. We’re going to have to play our best baseball.”
The Panthers (21-1) don’t need any motivation to get up for Tuesday’s semifinal. After all, Pioneer was a win away from the state championship game last June when Hopedale knocked them out in the Final Four.
Between that loss and the defeat against Ware in the Western Mass. finals — the latter being one that has provided extra motivation this state tournament — Luippold said he feels his team has learned from its losses and has come out stronger on the other end.
“Derek Jeter said baseball teaches you how to fail,” Luippold said. “We have to learn from our losses and that loss to Ware. We’ve been looking at the loss as positive and using it to fuel us and learning the lesson that we have to stay in all games. It worked with Hopedale and hopefully we can keep it rolling.”
So far this postseason, runs have been hard to come by against the Panthers. Pioneer allowed a total of four runs during its three Western Mass. tournament games and so far this tournament shut out No. 28 O’Bryant in the Round of 32 (10-0) and held No. 12 Millis to three runs in a 6-3 triumph before its 3-1 win over Hopedale.
Cyhowski got the start against O’Bryant and Hopedale, and it would be a surprise if Ethan Quinn, who pitched against Millis, didn’t get the ball to open the game against Hopkins on Tuesday. Ian Simpson has pitched in relief throughout the postseason for the Panthers.
No. 9 Hopkins (16-4) has had no problem hitting the ball this postseason. It opened the state tournament with a 6-3 win over No. 24 McCann Tech and went on the road and knocked off No. 8 Douglas by the same score to earn a trip to Georgetown to take on the top-seeded Royals.
The Golden Hawks — which won the state championship in 2021 — showed that championship heart against Georgetown, erasing a 5-0 deficit to come back and earn the win. Liam Flynn pitched in the victory and had a big day at the plate while Patrick Fitzgibbons, James Fitzgibbons, Chase Earle, Alex West, Cody West and Cooper Beckwith are just a few of the bats the Panthers will be tasked with slowing down.
Cody West threw all seven innings in the Round of 16 against Douglas, leaving him eligible to pitch on Tuesday.
“We’ll have to play good defense behind our pitching like we did against Hopedale,” Luippold said. “That was the best defense I’ve seen us play. We’re not going to just strike this team out every time so we’ll need to play that level of defense again. Offensively we need to put the ball in play and put it where they aren’t. We’ll have to string some hits together and try to capitalize on their mistakes.”