Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Ursuline’s Dylan Casey swings at a pitch against Field on Monday in the district semifinals.

STRUTHERS — Coming into districts, Ursuline was on a run, playing some of its best baseball of the season.

The Irish had won four straight games, including six of its last seven, during a stretch in which it had beaten some quality opponents.

However, Ursuline’s run came to an end Monday, as the Irish fell 4-1 to Mogadore Field in the Division II district semifinals at Bob Cene Park.

“We’ve been playing good baseball, especially the last two weeks,” said Irish head coach Paul Kempe. “That team (Field) is really good. They have 20 wins for a reason. …We just didn’t have the ball roll our way. They played great in the infield and their second baseman made three or four great plays and that’s the reason why they’re moving on. It just wasn’t our day.”

The Irish struck first, as CJ Frasco scored a run on a wild pitch after reaching with a lead-off single in the top of the second.

Wanting to be aggressive on the base paths, the Irish tried to utilize their speed and take advantage of a pair of fielding errors by the Falcons in the second and third innings, but it backfired.

Nick Bako and Marc Manning were each able to reach first on errors, then with live balls, they each tried to steal bases. They both got to second, but Field was able to recover and throw them out at third as they each raced for the base. The outs killed the momentum that Ursuline was trying to build.

“We were aggressive on the base paths, but maybe a little too aggressive early on,” Kempe said. “There were situations where obviously we needed those runs. Those are big momentum changes right there. Those are two of our faster guys, and they make great throws to get them out. One of them, we kind of stumbled around second, but you wish you could have those back. Those killed a lot of momentum for us, but we had plenty of opportunities, unfortunately we just didn’t make them.”

Ursuline also gave up two unearned runs in the bottom of the third that gave the Falcons the lead for good.

Field’s Garit Greene scored on a wild pitch, while Braxton Baumberger scored on a passed ball in the next at bat.

“I think we put some pressure on ourselves right there,” Kempe said. “We battled out of some jams, but those are big and they had them and they took advantage of it.”

An RBI from Kayden Smith in the fourth inning and an RBI from Gavin Greene in the fifth inning would be the final runs of the game.

Ursuline ends the season at 16-9-1 and will graduate nine seniors this season.

“Our guys battled, and I’m so proud of them,” Kempe said. “It was a great year. It’s not the way we wanted it to end, but we’re playing deep into May again and that’s something to be very proud of. Credit to Field, they’re well coached and whoever they have on Wednesday, they’re going to put up a heck of a battle with them.”

The Falcons will now face No. 2 seed Canfield on Wednesday for the district title. The Cardinals defeated Poland 3-0 in the other semifinal to advance.

nmadhavan@tribtoday.com