SOUTH DEERFIELD — It’s been the start to the season Frontier baseball coach Chris Williams envisioned. 

After knocking off Southwick in their opener on Thursday, the Redhawks hosted Hampshire on Friday in Suburban League West action and kicked off league play on the right foot. 

Frontier opened up a 3-0 lead after two and strong pitching from sophomore Joey Hutkoski helped the Redhawks improve to 2-0 with a 7-3 victory. 

“Definitely pleased to start the season this way,” Williams said. “That was our goal to play our best baseball right out of the gate. Give credit to Joe. The guy got up in his pitches and kept throwing strikes.” 

With a young team playing its first game of the season, Hampshire coach Mark Baldwin said the Raiders did some things he liked but have plenty to clean up moving forward. 

“We have to adjust to the offspeed stuff,” Baldwin said. “It takes time. Especially our younger players. They have the concept of it but we’ll get there. We made a couple errors but they didn’t kill us. We made some good plays in the field too. There’s always things to fix but there’s things to build on.”

Frontier got on the board in the first after Austin D’Urso scored on an error. In the second, Braeden Dion crushed a double to left that scored Hutkoski before Ben Caron grounded out to bring Jack Cusson in, giving the Redhawks their 3-0 lead after two. 

Hampshire got a pair back in the top of the third after Jacob Sicard cracked a single down the left field line to score Cameron Hunsicker and Riley Florek. 

Frontier took back control in the fourth. Hutkoski, Cusson and Dion drew consecutive walks to open the frame before Brady Poreda hit a sac fly to score Hutkoski. After D’Urso singled to reload the bases, Kaden James drew a walk to score Cusson. Liam Nolen came on in relief for the Raiders to get a groundout and end the inning with the Redhawks leading, 5-2. 

The Raiders were threatening in the sixth, as Joe Moro and Colin Hogan each singled and swiped a base to put runners on second and third with one out. 

Hutkoski — who went 5 and 1/3 innings on the hill, striking out five, walking four and scattering just five hits along the way — was replaced on the mound by D’Urso, who struck out the next two batters to get out of the jam. 

“We got in a hairy situation there but D’Urso came in and shut them down,” Williams said. “That’s how you secure baseball games. Defensively our pitchers can trust the guys behind them.” 

Collin West walked and scored on a wild pitch in the bottom of the fifth before Caron walked to open the sixth and was brought home by a sac fly from D’Urso to give the Redhawks a 7-2 lead going into the seventh. 

Hampshire made things interesting in the final inning. With two outs, Morin and Vynce Carr each singled before an error scored Morin while putting Carr on third and Joe Moro on second. 

D’Urso was able to get a flyout to seal the win. 

Hogan got the start for the Raiders, going 3 and 2/3 innings and striing out one. Nolen went the rest of the way, striking out three. 

The four strikeouts committed were encouraging for Williams, who wanted his team putting the bat on the ball as much as possible. 

“The biggest part of today was limiting strikeouts,” Williams said. “That’s something we struggled with [last week] on the Cape and struggled with against Southwick. It’s something we work on so it was nice to see the guys come out and put the ball in play. We’re an athletic team so when we get on base, other teams are in trouble.” 

Softball

Hampshire 6, Frontier 4 — Trailing 6-1 entering the top of the seventh inning, the Redhawks rallied within two and had the bases loaded with just one out. But Hampshire’s Rachel Hickox closed the door on Frontier’s comeback by retiring the next two batters.

The game was tied at one apiece in the sixth, but the host Raiders plated five runs to jump in front by five headed to the last. The Redhawks never gave up, as Delaney Fifield ripped a two-run single to score Ashley Taylor and Olivia Machon – both of whom reached on walks. Raine Wonsey then drew a walk with the bases loaded to score Fifield.

Skyler Steele, Sophia Pinardi and Wonsey occupied all the bags before Hampshire made a pitching change and Hickox got out of the jam.

“The coaching staff is prud of them, and they’re proud of themselves,” Frontier head coach Gary Deane said of Frontier’s effort. “We’ve played against top teams in the past, and being down a few runs is nothing, we know that. So that was a point of emphasis, that comes from the girls themselves – just staying positive. We were fouling off pitches and worked the count, so her pitch count went up and you could tell [Hampshire starter Ryanne Dubay] was kind of gassed in that last inning. So we’re proud of making almost a comeback. It’s a great to play a really good team right away.”

The Redhawks’ first run tied the game up at one in the top of the fifth inning, and it was the bottom of their order that got the job done. Addie Ehle and Abigail Schreiber both singled to create some traffic on the basepaths for the top of Frontier’s lineup. Ashley Taylor then singled, and when Ehle took off for third, a Hampshire fielder threw the ball over the third baseman’s head and out of play – moving everyone up a base and scoring Ehle.

The game remained tied going into the sixth. Because Frontier plays in such a difficult league and has a tough independent schedule as well, Deane knows contributions from everyone in the lineup is key to his team’s success.

“Kids are stepping up, and that’s what we need,” Deane said. “We need everybody, one through nine, to contribute. We’re in a tough league, so they have to be hitting.”

Frontier (0-1) hosts Mohawk Trail next Tuesday in its home opener at 4 p.m.

Boys tennis

Frontier 3, Palmer 2 — Casey Bestler earned a 6-2, 6-0 victory in No. 2 singles during his first ever tennis match, helping the Redhawks pick up a road win over the Panthers on Friday. 

Xavier Fripp and Noah Nichols earned a 6-1, 6-3 victory in No. 1 doubles while Frontier won No. 2 doubles via forfeit. 

Boys volleyball

Athol 3, Chicopee 1 — The Bears opened their season with a 25-21, 25-20, 20-25, 25-20 victory at Mallet Gymnasium.