SHALER TWP — Freeport went down swinging.

Facing one of the most dominant pitchers in the WPIAL, the Yellowjackets dropped a 7-4 decision to Montour in the opening round of the WPIAL Class AAA Baseball Tournament Monday afternoon at Shaler’s Matulevic Field.

Freeport (13-7) put together eight hits and scored four runs against junior right-hander Trent Vietmeier, who is headed to LSU.

“I couldn’t be prouder of our guys,” Freeport coach Chris Graczyk said. “We were 4-11 last year and this team completely turned that around.

“We got a lot of good swings against an excellent pitcher. But there’s great pitchers up and down our section. I knew we weren’t going to be intimidated in this game.”

Vietmeier entered the game with a 5-0 record and 0.94 earned run average. With one out, a runner on first and a 2-0 count on the Yellowjackets’ Nathan Pastorek in the seventh, Montour coach Glenn Vietmeier removed his son from the mound for reliever Chris Hanlon.

Hanlon wound up losing Pastorek to a walk, but struck out Derek Jones and got James Flemm to pop out to the mound to end the game.

Vietmeier threw 108 pitches.

“They hit Trent pretty good,” Coach Vietmeier admitted. “Their first three hits were on off-speed pitches, so they were able to get around on him early. I never should have let him start the seventh. That’s on me. We have three very high quality pitchers.

“This was not a smoothly played game by us. We’re happy to be on the winning side of it.”

The second-seeded Spartans (14-3) scored three runs in the first inning against Pastorek. Vietmeier had a run-scoring single to center, a run scored on a throwing error by the catcher and Zach McGowan hit a sacrifice fly.”

The 15th-seeded Yellowjackets scratched their way back into the game. No. 9 hitter Clay Westendorf doubled down the left field line leading off the third inning for Freeport’s first hit. Justin Brestensky moved him to third on a ground ball to second and Nevin DeCroo’s sacrifice fly to left scored him.

Trailing 5-1 in the fourth, Freeport scored three times. James Flemm and Westendorf had RBI singles and Brestensky’s infield grounder played a third run. The Yellowjackets had five of their eight hits in that inning.

“We could have gotten more out of that inning. We had the bases loaded,” Graczyk said. “We came up a few clutch hits short today.

“They hit better with men on base than we did. That was probably the difference.”

Freeport stranded two runners on base in the second, fourth, sixth and seventh innings.

Montour scored two runs in the third inning after a throw to the plate that would have cut down a runner for the third out eluded catcher Frankie Stefko. With two outs in the fourth, a soft liner to shortstop was mishandled by Brestensky. Two runs later scored in that inning.

“We caught a couple of breaks there,” Coach Vietmeier said. “But we made them hurt. That’s what good teams do.”

“That’s baseball. You try to make as many plays as you can. Some get away,” Graczyk said. “Those two plays didn’t cost us the game.”

Pastorek went the distance for the Yellowjackets, throwing 113 pitches. He is headed to Allegheny College. Third baseman Josh Beale is headed to Indiana (Pa.) University for baseball.

The Yellowjackets are graduating 12 seniors.

“Nate pitches his heart out every time he takes the mound,” Graczyk said. “This is a great group of seniors. They turned around this program.”

Freeport 001 300 0 — 4 8 2

Montour 302 200 x — 7 10 1

W: Trent Vietmeier 6.1IP (6K, 3BB). L: Nate Pastorek 6IP (3K, 2BB).

Freeport (13-7): Justin Brestensky RBI, Nevin DeCroo RBI, Josh Beale 1B, Nate Pastorek 1B, James Femm 2-1B, Frankie Stefko 1B RBI, Kris Keppel 1B, Clay Westendorf 2B 1B RBI

Montour (14-3): Grant Geregach 1B, Frankie Guerra 2-1B 2-R, Kailen Grimm 2-R, Trent Vietmeier 2-1B 2-R RBI, Adam Celedonia 2-1B RBI, Zach McGowan 1B 2-RBI, Logan Vietmeier 1B RBI, Chris Hanlon 1B