GREENFIELD — It’s been a quick turnaround from the high school baseball season to the American Legion season for the Greenfield Post 81 Senior Division team. 

With more than half the team coming from the Greenfield and Pioneer programs — and with both teams making runs to this week’s MIAA Division 5 semifinals — Post 81 has had to shift focus in a hurry, opening the season with a 4-3 loss to North Adams Post 125 on Wednesday. 

Greenfield dropped to 0-2 on the season on Friday against Westfield Post 124, as Westfield rallied to score two in the sixth inning and kept Post 81 off the board the rest of the way en route to a 2-1 win at Vets Field. 

“We had some good hits, we just hit it right at them,” Post 81 coach Alex Siano said. “Dylen Richardson hit it hard at the right fielder three times. We didn’t get the timely hit. With a game like that, a little small mistake, a passed ball, a wild pitch, anything like that really matters in a 2-1 game. The kids played well and I can’t be mad at anybody.” 

Scoreless in the fourth, Jackson Campbell led off the bottom of the frame with a single, Post 81’s first hit of the game. 

Campbell worked his way to third and scored on a balk, giving Greenfield a 1-0 lead.

Westfield rallied in the sixth. Nick Lenfest walked, moved to second on a bunt and scored on a single from Emmett Garfield to tie the game. 

Garfield later scored on a wild pitch to give Westfield a 2-1 advantage.

Campbell added a base hit in the sixth but that was the final hit of the night for Post 81, as Westfield pitcher Andre Pfanauf held Greenfield to just two hits, striking out four along the way. 

Hugh Cyhowski went the distance for Post 81, scattering five hits and striking out 10. 

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” Siano said. “That’s baseball. That’s a good team. They’re all going to be good teams. All these kids are high level baseball players and a lot of them are going to go on to play after high school. We’ll just go get the next one.” 

With minimal time between the two seasons, and the Greenfield and Pioneer seasons ending on Tuesday, there hasn’t been much time for Siano to get the team together for practice to get on the same page. 

That’ll happen as the season goes on, with Siano saying he’s confident in the players on the team. 

“I like the team,” Siano said. “When you bring a bunch of kids together who have all had good high school coaches, they all do it a little bit differently. To try to get them to go one way and be all on the same page takes a bit. It’s been three days. We haven’t had a lot of chances to practice with Pioneer and Greenfield making long runs so we didn’t have time to practice and really get together as a team. That will come as we go.” 

Post 81’s roster is made up of the top players in the area. Jackson Glazier, Braeden Tsipenyuk, Jackson Campbell, Ben Werner, Hugh Cyhowski and Ethan Mauthe make up the Pioneer contingent on the roster while Caleb Thomas, Deven Dubie, Arthur Fitzpatrick, Michael Pierce and Luca Siano are the Greenfield players who made the team. 

Sam Connors is the lone Mahar representative, Ben Caron and Brady Poreda are Frontier players on the team, Dylen Richardson is the lone Turners player while Logan Moore is the lone Mohawk Trail member of the roster. 

Former Pioneer player Ian Simpson is the oldest player on the roster while Williston’s Shane Bussard and Daniel Bussard round out the Greenfield roster this summer. Siano said the team has high aspirations for the summer swing.

“What I hope to do is be one of the top two teams in the Western Mass. Legion section so we can go to states,” Siano said. “That’s the goal. We did it in juniors last year and that’s always the goal. I think we have the players to do it, we just have to do it on the field.”