WILLIAMSTOWN — Offense was in the air Sunday afternoon in Williamstown.

Mount Greylock and Hopkins Academy finished with what looked like a football score.

The seventh-seeded Golden Hawks came out victorious as they defeated the No. 2 Mounties, 27-14, in an MIAA Division 5 quarterfinal thriller.

Despite the game starting at 1 p.m, the Golden Hawks’ preparation started far before they took the field.

“All my girls came ready to play,” Hopkins Academy head coach Paula Cristoforo said. “We started off the day with a team breakfast at eight o’clock in the morning. They’re a good hitting team and we just knew we needed to come [to play].”

Hopkins got things going early and often.

Isabelle Palmisano led off the game with a single, but got caught in a fielder’s choice and was out at second base.

The next two batters reached and the bases were loaded for Cassidy Mushenki. Mushenski, Maggie Potter and Jessica Markowski all drew three straight RBI walks and set the Golden Hawks up with a 3-0 lead after one.

Two innings later, walks would haunt Greylock starting pitcher Kami Sweet once again.

Hopkins went on to walk two more times, allowing Lily Ellia to knock in two more with a single. Starting pitcher Kaelyn Zakaitis also helped herself out by knocking in Hopkins’ third run of the inning and giving her a 6-0 lead to pitch with.

The Golden Hawks drew 16 walks throughout the game, while only striking out a total of five times.

“My team is really good at being able to see the ball and read the pitcher,” Cristoforo said. “I also knew [Sweet] threw a good curve and her ball kind of drops so I told my girls to get in the front of the box because we wanted to catch it before it dropped.”

Greylock would answer in the fourth.

Mila Marcisz and Abbey Whitley knocked back-to-back singles to start the inning. Then, after a groundout, Mia Filiault singled both of her teammates in to put Greylock on the board.

Two batters later, Malia Koffi stepped up to the plate with a chance to cut the Hopkins lead to two.

She crushed a 1-1 pitch to deep center field, connecting on one of her two home runs and cutting the deficit to 6-4.

A.J. Pelkey followed with a single, and she was forced to stop at third when Emma Newberry’s rocket to center one-hopped the fence for a ground-rule double.

This prompted a pitching change as Zakaitis was replaced by Cassie Dion with the go-ahead run at the plate. But according to Cristoforo, this was all part of the plan.

“We knew they were a good hitting team,” Cristoforo said. “So I spoke to both of my pitchers and said ‘I’m gonna pitch you for a while, then I’m going to pitch you for a while, and then [go back] to you.’ We just wanted to see if we could mess up their batting a little.”

Dion got Sweet to line out to left field to end the threat and preserve the lead.

Hopkins would add two more in the top of the fifth and carried an 8-4 lead into the sixth inning.

For both teams, though, the offense was only getting started.

After two walks, Palmisano knocked in two more with an RBI single, putting the score at 10-4. This was the start of seven straight batters to reach safely for the Golden Hawks as they scored six more in the sixth.

“[Our goal] was to get as many hits as possible,” Palmisano said.

She would finish the day 3-for-5 with three runs batted in.

But Greylock would answer, as it had done all game.

Kayleigh Jaros and AJ Pelky each singled, but by the time Sweet came up there were already two outs.

That only fueled Sweet to hit the ball hard as she connected on a pitch and shot it deep over the left-field bleachers — giving her a three-run home run and putting the game at 16-7. Whitley added an RBI single and Greylock would end the inning with four more runs, although still trailing 16-8.

But what Greylock didn’t know was that the Golden Hawks were in the zone and the runs would continue. Eleven more runs to be exact. Hopkins sent 14 hitters to the plate, ballooning its lead 27-8.

This included a three-run home run from Laynie Bailey and a two-hit inning from Taylor Barry. That would be Bailey’s only hit, albeit a huge one, while Barry finished with three hits and three RBI’s.

After a Jaros single, Koffi sent her second home run over the fence, putting the Mounties into double digits. After a single and a walk, Marcisz knocked in one with a single, which was followed by an RBI groundout from Whitley and a two-run single from MacHaffie. But it wasn’t enough as the scoring would end at 14 for the Mounties.

“It was a tremendous season,” Greylock coach Mark Pierson said. “As a team we were second in the state. Everyone can have a bad day and so I judge it on that.”

Koffi, Pelkey, Marcisz and MacHaffie had three hits each for Greylock, with Sweet driving in three runs and Marcisz scoring three.

With the win, Hopkins Academy earned a spot in the MIAA Division 5 Final Four where it will face a familiar foe in Turners Falls on Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Westfield State University. The Golden Hawks and the Thunder split their season series 1-1, including a loss to Turners in the Western Mass. Class D championship game just two weeks ago.

“We’ll have to adjust what we hit and how we hit [from today’s game],” Cristoforo said. “The next step is to prepare for the next game.”

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