BELCHERTOWN — When this year’s Franklin Tech field hockey senior class were freshmen way back in 2020, the Eagles won just one game.

Fast forward to 2023, and Franklin Tech is headed to its third consecutive Western Mass. championship. The No. 3 Eagles used two goals from Kenzie Sourdiffe – who came off the bench – to defeat No. 2 Belchertown on the road in the Western Mass. Class B semifinals on Friday afternoon.

“It’s just been a program that continues to build this whole time,” Franklin Tech head coach Rian Lovett said. “We carry a belief that we can do it, and we’re never counted out. For a long time we were counted out, but we’ve got some athletes that have a great chemistry and work really well together. Clearly that’s paying off.”

Sourdiffe wasn’t on the field at the beginning of the game, but she was more than ready to go when her number was called. The junior got the scoring started in the second quarter after a terrific effort from Kailey Steiner set her up for a clean look on goal. She added another early in the fourth quarter off a perfect feed from senior Kate Trudeau to put the Eagles ahead 2-0.

“She was dialed in today,” Lovett said. “She’s been doing really well on the post, and we’ve talked a lot about getting out in front and not hiding as much, so it was a good showing from her. Early in the season she kind of went through a drought, but she came up huge for us today.”

Belchertown refused to quit. The two teams met twice earlier this season and each won once (both games 3-0 scores) to share County League title honors, so the Orioles knew they had what it takes to respond.

Midway through the fourth, Belchertown’s Edith Audette found Isabella Cebula open in front of the cage, and Cebula hammered home a goal to cut the deficit in half with 6:52 remaining. The team’s top two scorers connected on a picture-perfect play.

“That goal was flawless,” Belchertown head coach Dina Brunetti said. “My two top players, No. 2 to No. 15, it was flawless. It looked like it was right out of a playbook.”

From that point on, the Orioles dominated the game. They came close to tying several times with well-placed crosses that scooted harmlessly in front of the goal – they just couldn’t quite get a stick on it to put one home.

“When we scored that goal, we outplayed them for those six minutes – we were on fire,” Brunetti  said. “We were centimeters away from having to put our top seven players out there and going into overtime. It just doesn’t roll your way sometimes. If they could’ve played like those last six minutes in the second quarter, it would’ve been a different game.”

Franklin Tech came into Friday having scored three or more goals in 14 of its 17 games, while Belchertown had done so 10 times in its 16 games. Both offenses have been potent this season. But considering the Eagles have had shutouts in 12 games, they felt they had the edge in a low-scoring game because of their defense – including the play of goalie Maddison Markwell (seven saves on Friday).

“I think [a low-scoring game] did favor us, and our goalie has been a rock back there all season and obviously it shows with the scores,” Lovett said. “And with the defensive support she has in front of her, she knows she can be aggressive and go out and make those saves. We have each other’s back, and that’s huge.”

Brooke Stelmokas was also stellar in goal for Belchertown. The junior made 13 big saves and kept her team within striking distance the entire way.

Despite Friday’s heartbreaking loss, the Orioles still have more field hockey left to play. Belchertown (11-5-1) is ranked No. 24 in the most recent MIAA power rankings, and automatically qualifies for the state tournament due to its winning record. Brunetti’s message to her team after the game was simple: get over it and move forward to prepare for states.

“Go enjoy the weekend, but we’re not over,” Brunetti said. “To my seniors, we’re not done. This team has done so much this year, and I signed the paperwork to be the coach three days before the season. They didn’t have a coach until they pretty much took the field for the first game. And we lost huge players last year, but we’ve been great. So, it’s not over. We’re not done. We know what we’re up against in the states, but we’re not gonna go down easy.”

Franklin Tech (16-1-1) won two Class D championships in a row heading into the year. There is no longer a Class D, so the Eagles not only jumped up one class, they actually jumped all the way to Class B. They will now will face No. 1 East Longmeadow Monday at 5 p.m. at Agawam High School in the championship round looking to make it three straight titles.

Lovett knows the Spartans will be a different beast than their previous years’ opponents, but she’s going to have her team ready to go from the opening face off.

“We’re gonna go watch some film on them and see what we’re up against,” she said. “They’re good, obviously. But I think that they play a lot of similar teams than we do so I don’t think it’s going to be as lopsided as people think it is. We don’t really care who we’re playing, we just wanna go out there and do our thing. The seed doesn’t matter. We go into every game knowing we can win. We did that today, and I think we can do that again on Monday.”