Staff photo / Brian Yauger Mathews catcher Caleb Nicula, right, tags out Windham’s Michael Bolyard at home plate during Friday’s Division VII sectional final victory over the Bombers in Vienna.

VIENNA — Baseball games often come down to the team that can string hits together at the right time.

On Friday, that team was Mathews. The Mustangs got the hits they needed in a 5-1 victory over Windham in a Division VII, Northeast 1, sectional final matchup in Vienna.

The win marks the Mustangs’ ninth straight win and their 12th in the last 13.

Around the middle of April, things weren’t going well for Mathews. The team had lost its fifth in a row and needed to correct course before the season fell apart. But the Mustangs came together as a group, fought through the lull in the season and have only lost once since.

“We were at a point right there where the season could have gone either way,” Mathews coach Jared Terlecky said. “The seniors I have this year, their leadership’s been excellent. They just said, ‘No, this isn’t how this is going to end. We’re not going to quit, we’re not going to let up, we’re going to work through it,’ and all of a sudden, we just started seeing those signs of a good team. That situational hitting, good defense, guys making plays when you need to and all those things kind of started to happen, and we’ve been on a roll since then.”

That streak includes a pair of wins over league champion Maplewood and a comeback win over Chalker.

Senior Zane Fisher was a defensive standout in left field for Mathews on Friday. Any ball Windham hit in his direction landed in the senior’s glove.

Fisher also scored in the fourth inning.

“I think he had seven or eight put outs,” Terlecky said. “He was just all over.”

Caleb Nicula, Jared Pegg and Kam Kester each recorded multiple hits. Pegg and Nicula both had three, two singles and a double for each. Colton Kish hit a triple.

Bryan Smithberger and Cam Batterby both had a pair of hits for Windham.

“Those kids played tough today, and their pitcher, (Keegan) Kiser, battled all five innings he pitched,” Terlecky said. “He was around there using his curve and mixing it up and keeping us off balance and stuff.”

Windham’s season comes to a close with a 9-11 mark.

“They were just a better team today I thought,” Bombers coach Jake Eye said. “I didn’t think we played bad. A lot of respect for Mathews and what Jared does. He is probably one of the better coaches in the area. He always has his teams prepared. They’re not going to beat themselves. We couldn’t string some hits together. You know, I thought Keegan pitched well enough for us to win, but we didn’t get the key hits when we needed to.”

Mathews advanced to the district semifinals and will welcome Andrews Osborne Academy to Dan Kennedy Field with a chance to play for a trophy on the line.

“You have to have that situational hitting, like we had today,” Terlecky said. “A couple times, where we had a guy on second, we got the single. … You’ve got to be able to make those plays, and you’ve got to be able to throw strikes in crunch time or else things get a little bit squirrely there at the end.”