EAST LONGMEADOW - Dan Kane walked to the plate for what he knew would be his final high school at-bat.

With the Northampton baseball team trailing by nine runs with one out in the seventh, Kane, a senior left-hander, dug in against East Longmeadow standout southpaw Steve Moyers with a chance for a memorable final swing.

"I just wanted to swing as hard as I could and try to hit it hard somewhere," he said.

Kane hammered the pitch down the left-field line for a double.

Moyers "loves to mix up his pitches," Kane said. "He threw me a couple of first-pitch curves in the first two at-bats, so I was looking for the curve. His fastball is good, but it's not necessarily overpowering, so you can be ready for it without necessarily having to swing right away."

It was the second hit for Kane in three at-bats against the Spartans' ace, but the rest of the team went a combined 0-for-20 and lost 9-0 in the Western Massachusetts Division 1 Tournament quarterfinals.

Going out with a good day at the plate is "nice, but it's a like a side prize," Kane said. "You can't beat winning. It was nice, but I'd obviously much rather have the win."

No. 1 East Longmeadow (18-3) took advantage of four Northampton errors to score eight unearned runs, turning a close game into a lopsided affair in the fourth inning.

"We thought we had a chance to make a run, but we ran into a great team and a great pitcher today," Kane said. "We didn't necessarily play our best game and they took advantage of it."

The No. 9 Blue Devils (12-10) hit the ball hard early, as Kane lined a two-out single up the middle in the top of the first, but was later caught stealing to end the frame.

In the second, Sam Goodwin-Boyd and Nick Behrens each hit hard line drives that were snared by Moyers on the mound.

"We knew he threw a lot of strikes, so our goal was to hit first-pitch fastballs," Northampton coach Mark Baldwin said. "We hit him hard, but they happened to catch them all."

Behrens added another tough-luck out to end the game when he smoked a liner down the left-field line only to have it snatched out of the air by Spartans' third-baseman Garrett Baker.

"If we had broken through early, I think it might have been a different game," Baldwin said. "We hit it hard and they caught them, and we made a couple mistakes and they took advantage of them."

Andrew Sadowski cruised through the first two innings and was let down by a two-out error that allowed Matt O'Neil to score the first run of the game in the bottom of the third.

But things really got rough in the fourth when Baker reached on another misplayed grounder to lead off the inning and stole second. Sadowski retired the next two batters, but James Croci, East Longmeadow's No. 9 hitter, doubled to deep right-center to make it 2-0 and O'Neil followed with a towering home run over the left-field fence for a 4-0 lead.

When Kenny Morrisino doubled down the left-field line, Baldwin pulled Sadowski (3-2/3 innings, six hits, two strikeouts, no walks, no earned runs) in favor of Goodwin-Boyd.

Sadowski "left a couple off-speed pitches up and they strung them together," Baldwin said. "They make you work and wear you down. He was probably up to 70 pitches or so and wasn't quite as sharp when he got back to the top of the order" in the fourth.

Goodwin-Boyd allowed three more runs on one hit, one walk and another error behind him, before finally striking out Baker to end the long inning.

"One through nine, I think (the Spartans) hit a little better than we do," Baldwin said. "Our one through four is probably as good as their one through four, but they wear you down with their depth a little bit. Then, when they get the bottom of the order on base, their big guys make you pay."

Moyer, meanwhile, cruised through the first 5-2/3 innings having faced the minimum number of batters. Enwil Berrios Maldonado reached on an error in the fourth, but Moyer induced a double play to end it.

Finally, Zack Goodwin-Boyd reached on a two-out error in the sixth, but was stranded at first.

Kane then doubled in the seventh and took third on a grounder by Sam Goodwin-Boyd, but the game ended on Behrens' second hard-hit out.

"Nick hit it equally as hard (as Kane) and had an 0-fer because they caught them," Baldwin said. "There's nothing you can do about that."

East Longmeadow is one win away from reaching its third-straight WMass finals and avenging back-to-back one-run losses in title games. The Spartans will face No. 4 Chicopee (14-7) in the semifinals Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at Bullens Field in Westfield.

The loss marked the final game for Northampton seniors Michael Jasinski, Sam Goodwin-Boyd, Jake Laga, Jack Larson, Anthony Fappiano, Chris Tacy, Behrens, Berrios Maldonado and Kane.

"That's a group of seniors that made the tournament all four years that they've been in the program," Baldwin said. They've won a lot of games. They've done a nice job for us."

Northampton struggled through injuries early in the season and got off to a 3-6 start.

"I kind of look at it as two seasons. We had the early one where we were kind of banged up and then we had the stretch where we won a lot of games," Baldwin said. "At one point, I think we were (3-6) and we finished with 12 wins. That's a pretty good turnaround."

Jim Pignatiello can be reached at jpignatiello@gazettenet.com.