POTTSVILLE - Marian was hot. Nativity was not.

But one perfectly-timed, well-placed hit by the Hilltoppers’ Fletcher Eades changed everything for both teams.

Eades’ two-out, two-run single in the fifth inning gave Nativity its first lead of the game, and it went on to post a 7-3 District 11 Class 1A semifinal round victory over the Colts on Thursday.

For Nativity, which entered the contest having lost five of its previous six games, Eades’ hit was one that was weeks in the making.

“We were due, actually way overdue,” said Nativity coach Chris Polm about the four-run fifth-inning outburst that was jump-started by Eades’ hit. “We have been struggling to score runs our last five or six games.

“We haven’t had four runs in a game in a long time, much less four runs in an inning. But I kept telling our kids to hang in and keep working, and that the runs would eventually come. I told them one big hit could turn everything around and that’s what Fletcher got for us tonight.”

Marian had taken a 3-2 lead in the top of the fifth when Jake Bobish singled and eventually scored on Chase Petrilyak’s ground out.

Colt pitcher Brian Hinkle was in control of the game at that point, allowing just one earned run on five hits through four innings of play. Hinkle started the fifth inning with his fourth strikeout of the game and appeared headed for another easy inning as Nativity had a runner on first with two outs.

But things quickly deteriorated for the Marian freshman.

Nativity strung together four straight hits, including the two-run single to left by Eades and a two-run double down the third base line by Bryce Lesher.

“That’s the game of baseball,” said Marian coach Tony Radocha. “We were one pitch away from getting out of that inning a couple of times, but give Nativity credit, they battled, and they got some huge two-out hits.”

Polm said it was fitting that Eades delivered the game’s most important hit.

“Nobody works harder than Fletcher,” he said. “He’s always spending extra time working on his hitting and it really paid off today.”

Nativity added an insurance run in the sixth, but Hilltoppers’ pitcher Jake Kuperavage didn’t need it.

Kuperavage tossed a complete-game, seven-hitter, allowing just one earned run and striking out four.

“Jake’s our ace. He has been since the first game he ever pitched for us,” said Polm. “He pitched another great game today.”

Radocha also had plenty of praise for Kuperavage.

“Kup did a great job on the mound today,” the Marian coach said. “I’m proud of our kids. We battled him, we got some base runners on, but he got the big outs when he needed them.”

Despite the season-ending loss, Radocha was pleased with the way his young squad played down the stretch.

“The positive I’m going to take away from this game is that for one of the few times all season, we got beat and didn’t beat ourselves,” said Radocha. “Nativity strung some hits together and earned the win. We didn’t commit a bunch of errors and hand it to them.”

Radocha also said his team laid a nice foundation for next season.

“We had won our last four regular season games heading into today,” he said. “We play a lot of freshmen and sophomores and early in the season that hurt us. But as we started to gain more and more experience, we began playing much better baseball.”

BUSTING OUT ... Nativity had scored just 11 runs in its previous six games heading into yesterday - an average of just 1.83 runs per game.

FOR THE RECORD ... Nativity is now 9-12 on the season. It will play Tri-Valley at 3 p.m. on Monday at Schuylkill Haven High School for the District 11 title. The Colts finish 7-10.

HITTING STARS ... Dante Agosti had two hits and an RBI for the Colts. Julian Rickert had a double, while Jake Chulock, Joe Walko, Bobish and Hinkle all added singles.

Marian 110 010 0 - 3 7 2

Nativity 010 141 x - 7 10 3

Hinkle and Rickert; Kuperavage and Eades. W - Kuperavage. L - Hinkle.