NORTH ADAMS — The Athol baseball team got on the board first at Joe Wolfe Field, putting the pressure on host Drury.

The top-seeded Blue Devils had left five runners on in three consecutive innings, stranding runners at third base in the second, third and fourth innings, but couldn’t get on the board

That all came back to bite the Bears in the fifth.

Drury parlayed five hits — including three RBI squeeze bunt singles — and four errors into 10 fifth-inning runs as the top seeds came from behind to knock off fifth-seeded Athol, 10-2, in the Western Mass. Class C semifinals on Monday afternoon.

The win sent Drury to the championship game, where the Blue Devils will play third-seeded Greenfield for the title on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at MacKenzie Stadium in Holyoke. It's the second game of a doubleheader, with the Class D final between top-seeded and undefeated Pioneer against No. 3 Hopkins Academy.

“Kudos to Drury. They put us in a spot where they were able to pin us up to the wall and make us a little nervous after we had them pinned up for five innings,” Athol coach Josh Talbot said. “They're a good baseball team, a championship-caliber team that does championship-caliber things. That means put their opponents in tough spots. That's what they did there.”

Drury is now 17-3, and Athol fell to 11-7. It was the final day for games to count toward the MIAA power rankings. Drury came into the game as the No. 3 team in Division 5 and Athol was 14th. The final power rankings and the tournament brackets that go with them will be released Wednesday.

The Blue Devils fell behind on a pair of unearned runs in the second inning. Athol got runners to second and third with two outs. Carson Rylander, who tossed a three-hitter and struck out seven, got Dominik St. Andre to ground the ball softly to first. An error by first baseman Colby Malloy had the ball ricochet away. With both runners moving on the hit, Marc Gould and Eli Wein scored.

The Blue Devils, meanwhile, did not get a hit against Athol starter Ethan Heuer until Malloy's two-out double in the fourth inning. He ended up on third after a passed ball, but was stuck there as Brayden Canales popped to shortstop Logan Cormier.

Things changed in a hurry in the fifth.

Rylander faced the minimum number of hitters, retiring the first two and walking Cormier, who was thrown out by catcher Julian Feliciano to end the inning. 

Noah Arnold opened up by singling to left and taking second on an error by left fielder Hayden Barrieu. After a wild pitch sent Arnold to third, Rylander was hit by a pitch. He stole second base on the first pitch to Connor Hinkell, and Talbot elected to walk Hinkell intentionally. It was the second intentional walk of the game to Hinkell, who actually walked four times in the game. 

Lucas Hamilton got credit for a single when Hinkell beat the throw from Cormier at second. J.J. Prenguber's squeeze bunt single plated Rylander with the tying run and a squeeze bunt single by Feliciano brought home Hinkell with what proved to be the winning run.

Drury broke open the game, and ended Heuer's day, when Brayden Durant hit a 1-0 pitch into the left-center field gap. It cleared the bases, and the Blue Devils went up 6-2. And when Prenguber grounded out as the 13th batter of the inning, the Blue Devils were up an insurmountable 10-2.

"Whatever the situation calls for, and I think, it allows us to put our stamp on the game and relax a little bit," Drury coach Robert Jutras said about the fifth inning, "and just say we're doing whatever it takes to just score runs. When you get to this point of the year, every run is huge.

"Our guys have the confidence to do it, and they executed well with that part of the game today."

The score was insurmountable because after the second inning Rylander was on point. The Blue Devils right hander allowed three base runners over his final four innings of work. After Athol scored the two runs in the second, Rylander needed only four pitches to set the side down in order. Rylander's day was done after six innings when he got Barrieu to pop out to Hinkell at third to end a threat.

Athol's Wein had all three of his team's hits, singles in the second, fourth and sixth innings. Otherwise, the Bears had trouble handling Rylander.

Rylander struck out St. Andre and gave way to Arnold, who got Raydin Sousa on a pop to Durant and Lavigne on a short fly ball to Rylander in center to end the game.

The Bears now shift their focus to the Div. 5 tourney.

“It stings a little bit,” Talboty said. “We were really excited to showcase ourselves. These guys drilled us [25-0] at the start of the year. We felt like this was a game we could win. Even without [ace] Logan on the mound, we were going to battle and compete and we did that.

“It’s probably going to hurt a little more. I don’t know if we’ll be thinking quite about the bracket until after it comes out.”