Correspondent photo / Lowell Spencer. Fitch senior Mason Petridis pitches during the Falcons’ district final loss to Stow-Munroe Falls on Saturday at Bob Cene Park.

STRUTHERS — Both Austintown Fitch and Stow-Munroe Falls pulled off hard-fought upsets to reach Saturday’s Division II district championship at Bob Cene Park. So, both teams entered the game riding a wave of momentum.

However, it was the Bulldogs that made the most of that momentum in a 5-1 victory over the Falcons.

“I didn’t feel we had our best effort today,” Falcons head coach Joe Paris said. “The guys did the best that they could, but we hit 14 or 15 pop-ups. Anybody can catch a pop-up, so we didn’t really put any pressure on their defense.”

With the loss, the Falcons close out their season with an 11-17 final record. After a slow 0-7 start, the Falcons went 11-10 the remainder of the year.

“I’m going to miss my seniors, most of all,” Paris said in reflection. “Coming into this year, we had extremely high expectations. With us advancing to the district finals, the first time since 2013, I feel bad because I feel that we didn’t play our best game today. That hurts the most.”

“Tonight obviously stinks, but it was a rough year because we had high expectations,” senior Frank Senediak added. “But we battled, and we battled tonight. It just didn’t go our way. I feel we gave it everything we had.”

The Bulldogs improved their record to 13-16 on the season and advanced to Wednesday’s regional semifinal contest at 5 p.m. against Walsh Jesuit at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills.

Fitch struggled to get anything started against Bulldogs senior pitcher Ben Bee, as he induced the Falcons’ batters to pop the ball up 14 times for outs in the contest, allowing just six base hits. Bee also did not issue a walk in his complete game performance.

Defensively, the Falcons allowed several bunt hits and surrendered some clutch hits by the Bulldogs with runners on base.

“We made some defensive mistakes early in the game, and that has been our Achilles heel all season long,” Paris said. “We are used to coming from behind all year long, but today we just couldn’t get back into the game.”

The Bulldogs seized the advantage with two runs in the bottom of the first inning with a walk and three one-out singles. They would add to their lead in the second frame when they collected a base hit to right-center, followed by two consecutive bunt singles that loaded the bases.

A bases-loaded walk and a sacrifice fly to right pushed two more across the plate for the Bulldogs. That provided them with a 4-0 advantage.

“It seemed like we were in a jam every single inning,” Senediak said. “There were always guys in scoring position for them, and we battled out of it. We gave ourselves a chance at the plate, but we didn’t execute when we needed to.”

The Falcons finally found an opening off Bee in the sixth when Senediak was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning. He would then score on an RBI double to right-center by senior Jackson Cheeks to make it a 4-1 game.

“I really thought so,” Senediak said about Fitch’s comeback chances. “We had the meat of our order up, but it just didn’t fall our way.”

However, Munroe Falls added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth to reach the final score of 5-1. Following a lead-off single and a one-out double, Paris brought in reliever Jaden Wallace, who got Munroe Falls’ Kyle Boozer to hit a sacrifice fly to right field.

Senior pitcher Mason Petridis battled all night as he pitched 5.1 innings in the loss for the Falcons. He surrendered 10 hits and four walks on the night, while striking out four Bulldog batters. Offensively, Fitch struggled to string any hits together as they collected only six base hits in the game. One in each of the game’s final six innings.

“He had a slow start. His off-speed, he wasn’t getting it over very well,” Paris said. “But defensively, we didn’t do a good job of fielding bunts and those types of things, so we put him in some tough situations. But as the game progressed, he got better and better.”