Cranston Western’s run through the District 1 tournament ended on Monday, coming to halt with an 11-8 loss to Johnston National in the district championship round. Johnston National, the same team that knocked off Western in its tournament opener, broke the game open with a nine-run fourth inning and held on to claim the league’s first District 1 title since 1969. It is only the second time in the last five years that Cranston won’t represent the district in the state tournament.

“We’re fortunate that we’ve had so much success at Western, but that’s also what makes this such a tough loss,” Western manager Gary Bucci said. “These kids all worked so hard, they put in so much time and energy and I hate to see it come to an end. But Johnston is a tough team and they deserved to win.”

National’s game-changing rally came just a half-inning after Western grabbed its first, and only, lead of the game. Trailing 2-0 at the top of the fourth, Cranston’s James Sweeney lined a 3-0 pitch to left, took second on a wild pitch and scored when Johnston made a throwing error on a one-out single by Mac McCann. Anthony Simeone and Alex Cortalessa kept the inning alive and Travis Collins smashed a three-run home run to right-center, staking Western to a 5-2 lead.

“From a substitution standpoint, that inning worked out very well for us,” Bucci said. “[McCann, Simeone and Cortalessa] all got in and contributed and then, after Travis hit that home run, I thought that we would go and tack on even more. But, for whatever reason, that didn’t happen. And since Johnston is such a good-hitting team, I felt like we needed a few more runs.”

Bucci’s intuition proved to be right.

Johnston got off to an ominous start in the bottom of the fourth when Christian Aybar’s grounder rolled through the middle of the infield and bounced off the mound, making it an unplayable single for Western’s defense. Sweeney, who got the start for Cranston, hit the next batter he faced before walking Emilio Rodriguez to load the bases.

Luis Nunez picked up an RBI but made the first out of the inning on a fielder’s choice, Zach Coro and Gian Martellini both singled and James Picchi drove two more runs in with a groundball back up the middle. Armani Henderson singled in Johnston’s fifth run of the frame and two more came around to score on a two-base error by Western. Aybar, who started Johnston’s rally 10 batters earlier, put an exclamation point on the inning with a two-run home run to right, putting National on top 11-5.

“We had faith in our offense,” Johnston manager Doug Jeffrey said. “We knew we were going to put some runs up, and we did. They trust each other and that is a big key for us. We emphasize that you have to trust your teammates and that you’re never out of the game until the last out.”

Cranston mounted a rally of its own in the fifth as Sweeney led off the inning with a solo blast over the light tower in center field. McCann and John Pagano both drew one-out walks, and both runs came around to score on a Johnston error.

But, just as Western cut its deficit to 11-8 and began to swing momentum back in its favor, Johnston brought in Martellini, the ace of National’s pitching staff, to slam the door shut. Martellini got two quick strikeouts to end the fifth with two runners in scoring position and worked a perfect sixth to close out the win for Johnston.

“I was surprised that they didn’t have [Martellini] start the game,” Bucci said. “I thought we were ready for him. Last time he wasn’t really around the plate and I thought that, if he started, we would be able to get him out early by getting his pitch-count up. But he came in with momentum on their side, he was around the plate and we couldn’t do anything with him.”

“Once we had [Martellini] in there for five outs, we knew that we were going to win the game,” Jeffrey said. “This is the toughest 12 kids that I’ve ever coached. It’s a great group of kids, they’re tough mentally and they stayed in the game the whole way. They never quit, and that’s why we were able to do what we did.”

The loss brought an end to Cranston’s tournament season. After losing its first game, Western ran off a string of five consecutive wins, battling all the way through the losers’ bracket, to earn another shot at Johnston. And, despite falling in the final, Cranston’s future looks bright. This year’s team featured five 11-year-olds and the valuable experience of such a successful run can only make next year’s club stronger.

“We had fun and, even though we’re disappointed that it ended earlier than we hoped, these kids have all become better baseball players,” Bucci said. “To succeed you have to fail on occasion, and I’m proud of the fact that we won five in a row. And now we have a tremendous jump on next year.”