EASTHAMPTON — Hampshire Regional head baseball coach Mark Baldwin said matching up with Easthampton is “kind of like playing ourselves,” and added that his Raiders squad and the Eagles are very similarly constructed. The two teams played three weeks ago and Hampshire came from behind to win 5-3, and on Wednesday, it was yet another rock fight between the two Hampshire County programs.

Three runs across the second, third and fourth innings were enough for Raiders ace Colin Hogan, who gave up only three hits and one run across all seven innings to help Hampshire beat Easthampton 3-1 and sweep the season series.

“We’re kind of the same team,” Baldwin said afterward. “Stylistically, it’s almost a mirror matchup. I think the only difference was we got a couple of two-out hits today and they didn’t. Colin has been away for awhile so he hasn’t pitched in a bit, but I thought he did a really nice job today. I thought he mixed pitches well, I thought [catcher] Zach Phakos called a good game, and those clutch hits were huge.”

Earlier this week, Easthampton snapped a five-game skid with its second victory of the season by beating South Hadley 3-0. The results haven’t favored the Eagles (2-10) this season, but over the past two weeks, they’ve been playing much better baseball. During that losing streak, Easthampton was outscored by an average of 2.8 runs per game and didn’t lose a game by more than three.

That was again the case on Wednesday. Pitching and defense has kept them in almost every game this spring, but the Eagles haven’t strung together enough hits to consistently come out on top.

“We did a good job limiting them to only three runs,” Easthampton head coach Ed Zuchowski said. “[Starting pitcher Hunter Montalvo-Greene] pitched a great game for us, but we only managed one run. We had bases loaded twice and a guy on second base with nobody out, but we couldn’t score a run. That makes the difference in close games, and that’s why the score was what it was today.”

Following a scoreless first inning, Phakos began the top of the second with a walk before Phil Morin singled him over to third to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Hogan then sent a fly ball to center that was caught by Jake Kostek, but plenty deep enough to score Phakos – who tagged up from third. Hampshire took a 1-0 lead into the bottom half of the frame.

There, Easthampton loaded the bases with two outs, and Montalvo-Greene stepped in the box to face Hogan. Hogan got him to swing and miss to end the inning, eliminating the hosts’ scoring threat and preserving Hampshire’s lead.

With two down in the top of the third, the Raiders’ Jonny Angers stood on second base with Jacob Sicard at the dish. Sicard found a pitch he liked and drove it deep into center field. He cruised into second as Angers scored to put Hampshire in front 2-0. When Easthampton had its chance with runners on, it couldn’t come up with the key hit, and the Raiders made them pay the following inning.

“It’s good to see the timely hitting, and the last couple games we’ve had a couple kids hit the ball harder than we’ve seen,” Baldwin said. “Even though [Montalvo-Greene] is young, he’s only a freshman, he threw pretty hard. He challenged us, and it was good to get our young guys some experience against harder throwing.”

Easthampton scraped its run across in the bottom of the third using small ball. With one out and the bases empty, Jason Sigda took a pitch off the shoulder to put him on board. Patrick Larson singled to put him on third and once more the Eagles were threatening. They didn’t get a hit with a runner in scoring position, but Larson took off for second, and when Phakos threw down, Sigda bolted for home.

He slid in safely to cut the Eagles’ deficit in half. They trailed 2-1 after three.

The next inning, Hampshire struck again. With two out and nobody on, Thomas Moore singled and stole second. Cameron Hunsicker then drove him home to extend the Raiders lead back to two (3-1) – where it would stay for the remainder of the game.

“I don’t want the kids to get discouraged, but at the same time, being able to get that big hit that we’ve been working on in practice and score those two runs that we need to extend the game or win a game just hasn’t happened yet,” Zuchowski said. “We’ve run into that a half dozen times this year. We’ve had teams on the ropes we just can’t seem to finish. I just want these guys to know it will happen. Getting in a big situation is going to end in the result we want one of these times.”

Montalvo-Greene struck out seven and allowed just four hits in his 5 2/3 innings on the mound. Ethan Mullaly pitched a perfect inning and a third in relief. Easthampton returns to action on Friday. It hosts Frontier at Nonotuck Park at 4 p.m.

Hampshire (5-5) also plays Friday at 4 p.m., as it travels to Hadley to battle Hopkins.