AMHERST — The opportunity was there for the Hopkins Academy baseball team
Pitcher Patrick Michalak had set down 10 of the last 11 Lenox hitters and started to find a nice rhythm to his pitches.
The Golden Hawks loaded the bases in a tied game in the bottom of the fifth and a couple big hits could have opened the game up.
But they couldn’t capitalize, and after one bad inning, the game was out of reach.
Second-seeded Hopkins lost 8-1 in the Western Massachusetts Division 4 Tournament semifinal against Lenox at Earl Lorden Field Thursday.
“It sucks to end this way,” Hopkins coach Dan Vreeland said. “It just happened to be the day we played the worst game we’ve played all year. It was the little things.”
In the top of the sixth, No. 3 Lenox (16-6) scored seven runs to break open a tied game. Hopkins committed four errors in the inning and Michalak gave up six hits.
“It was a combination of a lot of bad things happening in a row,” Vreeland said. “That’s baseball.”
It was Michalak’s only bad inning, but it came at a steep price. A 1-1 game turned into a seven-run deficit.
“He pitched a helluva game,” Vreeland said. “He pitched as well as he possibly could, we just didn’t make the plays behind him.”
Michalak gave up nine hits and eight runs, while striking out two.
Hopkins (12-8) got its lone run on an RBI groundout by Zach Yahman.
Trevor Fil started the inning with a hard grounder to third. Lenox’s Mike Downer stopped the ball but it bounced away from him, letting Fil advance to second base.
Brett Morrison then grounded out, advancing Fil to third before Yahman’s RBI.
John Earle reached base twice in the game, drawing two walks.
Mike Curran had two hits for the Golden Hawks. Noah Scanlon-Dean also had a hit for Hopkins.
Morrison, Michalak, Caleb Wintsch, Brandon Bushey, Antonio Torres and Yahman played their last game for Hopkins.
Lenox advanced to its first sectional final since 1971. It will play McCann Tech, a 4-2 winner over Smith Academy. The championship is Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at UMass.
Lenox’s Conner Hanson pitched mostly to contact in his effort against the Golden Hawks, allowing only four hits in the game. He struck out four, walked four and gave up one run.
“He provided us some trouble but not too much,” Vreeland said. “We hit a lot of balls hard but we hit them at people.”
Jack Ellrodt opened the scoring in the first inning with an RBI double for Lenox.
In Lenox’s seven-run sixth, Hanson hit an RBI single to give Lenox a 3-1 lead. Later in the inning, Michael Hurley tripled, scoring two more runs for the Millionaires.
Luke Murphy and Pat Colvin also had RBI singles in the inning.
