AYER — Going into the season, the Frontier baseball team set three goals for its squad – win the league, win a Western Mass. title and win at least a couple of games in the state tournament.

The Redhawks were able to check all of those goals off over the course of the season, but their postseason run finally came to an end against No. 6 Ayer-Shirley on Sunday.

No. 14 Frontier’s five-game winning streak came to an end against the Panthers in a 14-3 loss in the MIAA Division 5 quarterfinals. After upsetting No. 3 Oxford in a dramatic 3-2 showdown in the Round of 16, the Redhawks knew they had a chance against the Panthers, but would need to play near perfect baseball to beat them.

“We knew we were going to have to have one of our best days in order to beat these guys,” Frontier head coach Chris Williams said. “Our goal most certainly was to come down here and get the ‘W.’ We started off hot with the bats, was feeling pretty good after that first top half of the inning. But we were going to need a special performance by our pitching staff today and by our defense, and we weren’t 100 percent there.”

The Redhawks’ best baseball came in the first inning, when they got three hits off of Ayer-Shirley starter Tyler Crawford. Alex Gochinski drilled a line drive to right field to get on first and advanced to second on Grayson Loos’ hit, though Loos was thrown out at first. With Gochinski on second, Eathon Bryant stepped up and unloaded at the plate, blasting the ball to left field for a double and bringing in Gochinski to score. Bryant plated during the next at-bat, when Liam Skribiski-Banack got to first on an overthrow that allowed Bryant to score.

“It was like a punch in the mouth for us,” Bryant said on his team’s early success. “We’re out there like, ‘oh yeah, we can compete.’ We’re up 2-0, but I think we got a little too cocky, and that happens. They came back score two, and it was a 0-0 ballgame from there. They came out and just played better baseball than we did.”

Ayer-Shirley responded during its first time at the plate, scoring twice to tie the game up going into the second. Neither team scored in the second, though the Panthers came close, loading the bases on a hit batter, an error and an intentional walk before managing to secure the third and final out.

The home team added more runs to the scoreboard in the bottom of the third, getting their first two batters on base on an error and a hit batter. That prompted a pitching change from Williams, who pulled starter Loos for Wyatt Edes.

Despite the change, the Panthers offense looked unstoppable in the third, and they notched four runs to take a 6-2 lead.

“I would say nerves,” Bryant said on his team’s miscues. “A lot of us have never really been here before. (We have) a lot of young guys on the team, a lot of young starters. This being the first time being in the Elite Eight, it gets to you.”

Those mistakes continued through the fourth and fifth inning, and after two innings on the mound, Williams pulled Edes for closer Aidan Heffernan, who threw the final three innings for the Redhawks. Ayer-Shirley scored two runs in the fifth and four more runs in the sixth to finish with 14 runs.

Frontier added its third and final run in the bottom of the fifth, when Brady Poreda got on base on a single and eventually moved over to third. He made it home on a single from Loos.

Despite the outcome, making it to the state quarterfinals was an accomplishment that the Redhawks won’t soon forget. They got there with a mix of experience and youth, and though they’ll graduate a handful of seniors this year, there’s still a bevy of players who are slated to come back next year and keep the Redhawks competitive.

“This group of seniors is a very special group. These guys were tremendous leaders, all six of them,” Williams said. “We’re definitely gonna miss them. But at the same time, we’ve got a young roster. We have some young freshmen and sophomores that will be coming up to our varsity program. So same expectation, same goals as this year.”

Hannah Bevis can be reached at hbevis@g azettenet.com. Follow her on Twitter @Hannah_Bevis1.]]>