The Spartans’ 17-game winning streak came to a sudden, startling end last Thursday during the final game of the Metro League playoffs against the defending champions from O’Dea.

The final score was 5-2, and the Bainbridge High varsity baseball team was forced to settle for second place this year.

Though an unpleasant affair, the BHS season was far from over, said Spartan Head Coach Simon Pollack. The island squad would advance regardless, with a shot at the state championship later this month.

The Metro championship game had been a strong showing for the Spartans, he said, and they were not beaten so much as outplayed.

The Fighting Irish drew first blood Thursday, leading 1-0 after their first at bat, but Bainbridge quickly took the lead and the game stood 2-1 by the second inning.

O’Dea had evened things up 2-2 by the fourth, however, and would lead for the rest of the game.

By the start of the fifth, the defending champs were up 4-2 and not another run would be scored until the seventh — when O’Dea pulled further ahead.

Pollack said after the game, “all things considered,” that the team was feeling “pretty good.”

“To really be honest with you, I think we all just need to take a breath,” he said. “We’ve been on a run, on a roll — and we’ve been going, going, going — and the first thing that I can think about doing is just taking a moment to reflect on the team that we played.”

As well as being the defending champions, Pollack said, O’Dea was a quality baseball team overall and an opponent to be taken seriously.

“You give that team an inch of space and they’ll take a mile,” he laughed.

“They hit the ball incredibly well,” Pollack added. “They run the bases incredibly well, so I think [we need] some good reflection on what they did well, and think about the game of baseball and make preparations for the next team we’re going to play.”

The answer to that looming question was not readily apparent last week, as games were still finishing around the league and brackets being filled in, but by Monday it became clear that BHS would next face off against Ferndale High at 10 a.m. Saturday at Skagit Valley Dream Field in Mount Vernon in the first round of the 2015 3A State Baseball Championships.

A win Saturday will put the Spartans within three games of being the state champs, with the final games slated for Saturday, May 30 at Gesa Stadium in Pasco.

The exponentially increasing hype surrounding the playoffs may have thrown the Spartans for a bit of a loop last week, Pollack explained, and said that the team will need to adjust quickly to the increased pressure and attention if they are to move successfully through the postseason bracket.

“It’s a big stage,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of people, a big crowd. The tension is high and every pitch, every ball, means something. When there’s that much focus on every thing that happens, I mean, these are high school kids.

“You look out there and you see the game that was played, and what a quality baseball game that was,” he added.

The disappointment was clearly evident on the faces of the Spartan squad and the mood of the post-game huddle was somber and intense.

“How pissed they are is a testament to who the kids are,” Pollack said, and how badly they want to be champions.

BHS utilized three pitchers throughout the game — primarily the BHS go-to man on the mound Trent Schulte — but also Brice Kozlosky and Jason Snare.

With the team facing the loss of such a big and prominent portion of the squad after this season, Pollack said, the promising up-and-comers like Snare would be looked to to step up quickly and lead.

“He looked good,” Pollack said of the sophomore. “We were thinking about throwing him in the last couple of games, but we’ve had the opportunity to keep our starting pitchers in, but Trent’s pitch count just got too high. He had to come out.”

Pollack said that the key to success for Bainbridge going forward was to maintain the momentum they had spent a season developing, especially in the long middle innings of games to come.