Delone Catholic's Zach Stephan throws a pitch during Wednesday's District 3 Class AA semifinal game against Brandywine Heights in Ephrata. The Squires lost, 7-3. (Daily Record / Sunday News -- Meghan Gauriloff)

The dream -- maybe a District 3 championship and certainly a state playoff berth -- fell apart in the fifth inning.

It all collapsed then for the Delone Catholic baseball team in a matter of minutes.

"They had the big inning, and we gave up uncharacteristically too much," Squires head coach Alan Felix said after a 7-3 loss to Brandywine Heights on Wednesday. "We didn't make them earn anything there. That's the difference in the game."

In a District 3 Class AA semifinal that was nip-and-tuck until that point, the fifth inning was the deciding factor for the Squires at Ephrata's War Memorial Field.

The Bullets advanced to the championship game, where they will face Tulpehocken, a 5-2 winner over Kutztown in the other semifinal.

"(Delone) is a great team and we knew that coming in," Brandywine coach Chris Cole said. "We've seen what they've done. They put up 18 runs last weekend (against Bermudian Springs)."

With Brandywine up 4-3, the Squires went into the fifth confident and playing efficiently. Defensively, the Squires didn't commit an error, but they didn't make the big play, either.

However, in the first at-bat, Brandywine's Kyle Stoudt forced Squire center fielder Cody Smith to make a decision in that ultimately proved to be costly.

Smith dove for a fast-falling pop fly, but couldn't come up with the catch, and it ended up as a triple for Stoudt. It wasn't marked as an error for Smith, but the cost was just as damaging.

One

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batter later, Jacob Seyler smashed a hard hit to left field that went over the head of Kodi Reed. The smack sent Stoudt home and was the second of two doubles for Seyler.

Two more uncharacteristic plays occurred before the inning was over, both during attempted double-play situations, and the Squires left the fifth inning down 7-3.

"They had that one inning defensively where it opened up," Cole said. "It was kind of back-and-forth and both teams were playing real solid games until that

Brandywine Heights' Caleb Erb, left, slides into home past the tag of Delone Catholic's Tyler Bullers during Wednesday's District 3 Class AA semifinal. (Daily Record / Sunday News -- Meghan Gauriloff)
point. Then they committed those two errors."

To make matters more frustrating, Brandywine unleashed one of its big hurlers, Garrett Vroman, in the top of the fifth after Stoudt pitched four strong innings of two-hit ball.

Stoudt had problems with his accuracy and threw six walks, which was the opening Delone needed to score its three runs.

But Vroman was a cast-iron lock. He threw the last three innings for the Bullets and retired the next nine hitters he faced, three by strikeout.

His quick-moving windup threw off the Squires and, for Cole, who's used Vroman primarily as a starter this season, it was the difference.

"He was a great closer last year," Cole said. "Last year, we used him as a closer and, this year, we used him as a starter for the most part. But he was well-rested."

Initially, Delone was able to knot the score up at 3-all in the top of the fourth with intelligent hitting.

C.J. Hoddinott drew a walk to open the inning before Josh Hippensteel powered a strong double to right-center field that put both in scoring position.

Matt Hutchinson followed with an RBI grounder to shortstop before an errant wild pitch two batters later by Stoudt allowed Hippensteel to tie the score.

cmull@eveningsun.com.