EASTHAMPTON - The Easthampton football team headed into halftime Friday night with its playoff hopes very much alive.

However, it took Pioneer Regional just four plays in the second half to regain the momentum.

The Eagles played well against the best team in the Tri-County League, but fell 28-16 at Sawyer Field on the campus of Williston Northampton.

The Panthers (9-1, 6-0) clinched the league title and with it the top seed in the Division 4 playoffs. The Eagles (3-6, 3-3 Tri-County) were eliminated from postseason contention.

"I did the math before the game, and if we won tonight, we would have been in," said Easthampton coach Joe Kocot.

"They're a heck of a team," added Kocot. "When you have that many good players spread out, the quarterback, the running back, the tight end, flankers, wide receivers, that's what happens. They're in the playoffs, and they'll probably be in the Super Bowl."

Trailing 12-0, Easthampton worked its two-minute offense to perfection, scoring on a 5-yard run by Jared Bean with just six seconds remaining in the half. Bean's two-point run made it 12-8.

Bean rushed for a game-high 113 yards on 15 carries. His first touchdown capped an 11-play, 65-yard march.

The junior also scored the Eagles' other touchdown when he took a shovel pass from Michael Hotham and barreled into the end zone from 20 yards out to close the scoring with 2:51 left in the game.

Pioneer took control of the game with a four-play, 71-yard drive in the first 52 seconds of the third quarter.

A 48-yard pass from quarterback Pat Viencek and Malachi Roman put the ball at the Easthampton 9. On the next play, Shane Deming took a direct snap and ran into the end zone. The two-point conversion made it 20-8.

The score was Deming's second of the night. He put Pioneer on the board late in the first quarter with a 10-yard run.

Deming led the Panthers with 101 yards on 13 carries.

Midway through the second quarter, Easthampton faked a punt on a fourth-and-4 from its own 20. Hotham threw incomplete, and it took Pioneer six plays to score on a 1-yard plunge by Viencek for a 12-0 advantage.

"We have six or seven fake punts, and it was all-or-nothing for us tonight," said Kocot. "It worked but we didn't connect. When you're going for a shot to pick off the top team, everything's in the play book.

"The way our defense was playing at that point, I didn't mind" giving the ball up, Kocot added. "We almost stopped them."

The Panthers added an insurance touchdown on the final play of the third quarter. On a third-and-one from the Easthampton 33, Viencek faked a quarterback draw but then pulled up and lofted a pass down the middle to a wide-open Tom Benoit, who ran untouched into the end zone.

Viencek finished 7-for-11 with 173 passing yards out of the shotgun spread offense. Benoit had three catches for 94 yards, and Roman hauled in a pair for 57 yards.

"Everything they did, we had our (scout team) offense doing for a week," Kocot said. "We saw a similar offense against McCann Tech. So we were ready for it. But we blew some coverages.

"A good team, they can be missing and missing, and then boom," he added. "That's what a good team does."

Roman also contributed a huge interception. With the Eagles down 20-8 but driving, Hotham fired a mid-range pass to the right and Roman dove to pick it off at the 10. That set up the Panthers' final score.

Jeremy Lessard ran for 55 yards, while Shane Andrews chipped in 46 on the ground. The Eagles moved the ball well, with 245 total yards.

"The guys played hard, the running backs ran hard," said Kocot. "We pretty much knew where the open spaces would be on the field when they were on defense. We kind of exploited that.

"We tweaked our isolation plays, and we added some wrinkles to it in the blocking scheme and in the backfield," Kocot said. "In practice, no one was getting tackled."

It was the final home game for Easthampton seniors Michael Lemoine, Eric Campbell, Wes Fortier, and Ronak Pandit.

"I'm proud of the kids, with as young as we are and only two senior starters," said Kocot. "Pretty much our whole team is back, and we have to hang our hat on that.

"The seniors we have are leaders, but we didn't have the 10, 12 seniors running the show."

Easthampton will close its season at Dean Tech at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 2. It is the first time the schools are playing on Thanksgiving Day.

"It's huge because it's the last game of the year," said Kocot. "It's the thing you'll think about in the off-season, even though there are highs and lows all season. And winning on Thanksgiving is always fun."