WINTHROP — If there’s one thing Mason Corriveau’s team has, it’s the ability to keep punching.

The Mountain Valley baseball team’s head coach had seen Winthrop throw everything it could at the Falcons in a Class C South prelim game Tuesday evening. Yet even after seeing victory snatched away, Mountain Valley had one last response in an 8-4 nine-inning victory.

“We have a really mentally tough group,” Corriveau said. “We haven’t had a home field all year, so we’ve been logging bus miles, and nothing’s come easy for us. If there was a group that was going to be able to regroup, hit, pitch and play defense, it was this one.”

Mountain Valley scored four runs in the top of the ninth after Winthrop had come through with four in the bottom of the seventh to force extra innings. Tyler Warren had a double and a single and also came on in relief to earn the win for the Falcons, who claimed their first playoff win since 2018.

Offense was hard to come by early in the game, particularly for 10th-ranked Mountain Valley (8-9). With Winthrop starter Trent Collin (11 strikeouts) mowing down the Falcons one by one, the visitors could only muster two hits over the first five innings and were held without one in the second, third and fourth.

With Seneca Jones also holding No. 7 Winthrop (8-9) scoreless, though, Mountain Valley was positioned well if it could find just a breakthrough — and that breakthrough would come. The Falcons tagged Trent Collin for two runs on four hits in the sixth before plating two more runs on his twin brother, Carter Collin, in the seventh.

“We just had a big talk in the dugout,” Warren said. “We weren’t energized at all; we weren’t helping our teammates — we were kind of putting them down a little bit — but then we had that talk, and it helped a lot.”

Winthrop, though, wasn’t about to let its season end quietly. After Finn Barrett flied out to lead off the bottom of the seventh, the Ramblers smacked five base hits to plate four runs. The potential winning runner, Will Grant, was tagged out at third trying to stretch the double that tied the game and forced extra innings.

Mountain Valley failed to score in the top of the eighth despite loading the bases with only one out. But thanks to two doubles, a walk, two wild pitches and a pair of Winthrop errors, the Falcons doubled their run total in the ninth before Warren shut down the bottom of the Ramblers’ lineup in the bottom half.

“Trent Collin is a heck of a pitcher, first and foremost, and he did a heck of a job today, so it took us a couple times through to get the timing down,” Corriveau said. “I just kept telling the boys, ‘Just get the barrel on it,’ and the third time through, they got the message and shortened up those swings.”

Seneca Jones pitched seven innings for Mountain Valley before Warren struck out three in his two no-hit innings of relief. Brody Adams (1 2/3 innings pitched, one earned run) took the loss for Winthrop, which got two hits each from Adams, Grant, Connor Williams and Ross Fichthorn.

The seventh-inning fightback was a resilient one for a Winthrop team that has a good chance to be back on the playoff stage next season with no seniors on this year’s team. To Ramblers head coach John Novak, though, it will take time for the sting of this defeat to wear off after nearly being 90 feet away.

“Our boys haven’t quit all year long, and I’m definitely proud of them and happy with how they fought back,” Novak said. “We’re very excited about next year, absolutely, but this one’s still going to hurt for a little while. We’ll worry about next year when next year comes.”