NORTHAMPTON — It had been quite some time since the Belchertown Post 239 Senior American Legion baseball team suffered its last regular season loss after going undefeated en route to the District 3 championship a summer ago, but Post 239 experienced that feeling on Friday evening at Arcanum Field.

Host Northampton Post 28 allowed one run to Belchertown in the first inning, but responded with a trio of runs in the third and continued to build on its lead the rest of the way – ultimately knocking off Post 239 6-1 to improve to 2-0.

“Our guys are resilient, no matter if we’re down or if we’re up,” Post 28 head coach Adam Krol said. “We know that if our opponent is on the field, they’re going to compete. So we need to keep competing with them. Tonight, we really stepped up, because sometimes there’s a tendency to take your foot off the gas pedal – and I don’t want to see that happen. We’re too good to have that happen. Tonight was a testament to our toughness and our focus.”

Northampton put forth a complete effort on Friday, starting with its two pitchers on the mound. Liam Flynn got the start for Post 28, and he tossed three solid innings. Flynn finished with five strikeouts and gave up four hits and just the one run in the first before Krol handed the ball to James Lavallee to close things out.

Lavallee came in and threw four shutout frames and allowed only two base runners (one hit, one walk) while striking out two. His defense was terrific behind him, and he even helped himself by kick-starting a 1-6-3 double play that ended the fifth inning.

After holding Belchertown off the scoreboard in the sixth, Lavallee struck out the first two Post 239 batters of the seventh and got the final out on a ground out to second baseman Matthew Vassallo.

“It all starts with defense at the end of the day,” Krol said. “We’re very lucky, because this is our home field and we know it better than anyone. We take great pride in our defense. We had guys out here after their school season ended taking hundreds of grounders. I’m glad it showed today and we have to keep building on that.”

Offensively, Post 28 was led by Vassallo’s three hits, two RBIs and two runs, as he showed up in big moments on a handful of occasions for Northampton – delivering with a pair of two-out knocks throughout the day. Trey Kuzmeski ripped a triple, scored a run and added an RBI, Flynn smacked an RBI double, Matthew Walko laced an RBI hit while Aiden Keeling-Lococo (run), Lavallee and Harrison LaFlamme each recorded hits in the win. Pat Millin also added two walks and scored a run.

After scoring three runs in the third to take the lead, Northampton added one run apiece in the fourth, fifth and six innings to slowly pull away.

On the other side, Belchertown notched five total hits, with two of them coming in the first frame. Ian McDonald scored the lone run after reaching base on a single in the top of the opening inning. Josh Misiaszek doubled, Jake Waller tallied a hit as did Spencer Waite.

Post 239 only struck out a total of seven times throughout as they continued to put the ball in play, however they couldn’t come up with the key hits they needed to get back in the game and support their pitching duo of Ryan Gould and Brodie Funk. Gould pitched 4 1/3 innings, striking out five on seven hits, two walks and five runs while Funk came in to toss the remaining 1 2/3 innings, surrendering one walk, one run and two hits.

“We need to put more hits together, that’s all it really comes down to,” Belchertown head coach Todd McDonald said. “We’re getting guys on base and we’re threatening a little bit, but we couldn’t get those hits that we needed to… I was very happy with our pitching. Ryan threw a great game, and Brodie, we just wanted to get him out there and get him some innings because I had never seen him throw. I was very impressed with the way he threw the ball.”

In previous years, teams could only advance to the state senior legion tournament if they won their district. But now, the top six teams make it from each district to create a super-regional-type tournament. With that in mind McDonald hasn’t been stressing the importance of winning each game.

Instead, his goal is to show steady improvement and crack the top six come the end of the year.

“This is a year where we need to stay competitive in games, and I thought early on we were competitive,” McDonald said. “We just need to find it later on and dig down deep. I had no grand illusions that we were going to go undefeated again this year. So this is OK. We took two out of three this week. We did our job.”

Belchertown Post 239 (2-1) and Northampton Post 28 (2-0) both return to action on Monday, with Post 239 hosting Longmeadow at 5:45 p.m. and Post 28 traveling to take on Westfield Post 124 at 7 p.m.

Youth baseball results

Northampton 15, Ludlow 0 (14U) — The Blue Devils’ pitching and hitting were both stellar in a blowout win on Wednesday. Oliver Yau started and pitched one inning, surrendering zero hits and zero runs while striking out two, Dylan Lawrence-Riddell pitched three innings for the Blue Devils, giving up no hits and no runs and striking out seven, and Iggy Piotrowski threw two scoreless innings, including an impressive four-pitch frame.

Alex Visentin Laing had three hits and Maceo Nteta collected two hits for the Blue Devils in three at bats apiece while Lawrence-Riddell, Yau, Bradyn Rios and Easton Jewell (double) each collected a hit in the home team’s victory.

Amherst 16, Palmer 2; Amherst 15, Palmer 8 (WMSBL) — In Western Mass. Suburban Baseball League action on Wednesday and Thursday, the Hurricanes swept Palmer to earn back-to-back triumphs on consecutive days.

On the road on Wednesday, Cyrus Arwade threw four scoreless innings to open the game, striking out 11 and allowing only one hit. The top of the Hurricanes order led the offense with Daniel Lebron, Arwade, Oliver Howard and Agho Mankin going a combined 13-for-17 and Mankin coming up inches short of a home run. Keenan Hamilton, Jonah Sommers and Jack Bajnoci also scored for the ‘Canes. Sommers pitched the last three innings for Amherst.

At home on Thursday, Amherst opened up a 5-0 lead on runs scored by Oliver Howard – who also threw three scoreless to start the game – Gus Garrett Peltier, Jonah Sommers and Jack Bajnoci. Palmer loaded the bases in the fourth and fifth to take an 8-7 lead and drop some pressure on the Hurricanes, but they re-took the lead with the game-tying and game-winning runs scored by Miles Fox and Julian Park in the fifth. Amherst didn’t look back, with Bajnoci pitching a clean sixth to end the time-limited game at a score of 15-8. Gus Garrett Peltier had an explosive night at the plate, going 3-for-3 with five total bases. Howard also helped his own cause at the plate, going 3-for-3 with two singles and a double.

Hatfield 5, Pekarski’s 0 (12U) — With the Frontier Youth League Cal Ripken title on the line on Thursday, Hatfield shut out Pekarski’s to capture the championship in dominant fashion.

Weston Phaneuf pitched a complete game one-hitter, striking out a whopping 16 batters in a gem on the mound. Phaneuf added a triple, double and two runs scored at the dish. Mondia Berthe added a hit, a run and caught a great game behind the plate for Hatfield. Clark Nugent got the scoring going in the first inning with a line drive up the middle and later scored the game’s first run.

Aidan Stone pitched a strong four innings for Pekarski’s highlighted by eight strikeouts. Aidan Pitchko struck out the side in the bottom of the fifth while Calvin Lively had a hit in the loss.