Considering all that Porters Chapel weathered this season, making it to the MAIS Class A South State title series was quite an achievement.

After winning Game 1 on Tuesday in Riverfield, PCA was eliminated in two games on Friday, losing Game 2 of the best-of-three series 4-3 and 13-7 in Game 3.

The Eagles (18-12) went through three coaches, as Randy Wright retired after last year’s title run, headmaster Doug Branning stepped down to focus on the school’s accreditation process and Jerry Bourne took over.

He thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

“They played hard for me, every single day, and they made my first season one of the most enjoyable experiences it could’ve been,” Bourne said. “I look forward to working with the guys that are going to be here next year because I’ve seen the fight and the attitude they have toward the game. They make it fun for me.”

While the Eagles were stellar on the mound with their top two pitchers, the lack of depth behind juniors Montana McDaniel and Matthew Warren proved to be fatal in Game 3, when they had to use three pitchers.

Warren had a brilliant season, going 7-1 with a 2.29 ERA. He pitched a three-hit gem in Game 2 against Riverfield, but was undone by a lack of run support and costly errors that set up Riverfield’s game-winning rally.

“That’s part of having a young team,” Bourne said of the errors. “But I always tell them, if you’re going to make an error, make it full speed. And they did that every single time. We never quit fighting and errors are a part of the game.”

McDaniel was forced to carry a heavy load as the team’s ace and he seemed to fatigue as the season wore on, going 5-4 with a 4.07 ERA. After brilliant performances in the first two rounds and another in Game 1 against Riverfield, he kept the Eagles in Game 3 until errors and a few missed spots due to fatigue led to the Raiders’ series-clinching rally.

Last year’s breakout player during the Class A championship run, pitcher Reed Gordon, was hampered by severe tendonitis in his patellar tendon and his pitching suffered as a result. He went 0-3 with a 6.95 ERA this season and only made two brief relief appearances in the playoffs.

No. 3 starter John Michael Harris lasted only a third of an inning in his start in Game 3. Harris finished 3-3 and was third on the team in innings pitched, but his inability to get out of a five-run first inning in Game 3 was a serious blow to PCA’s hopes.

Offensively, the Eagles had their best stretch hitting in the two games. McDaniel homered four times in the series and senior Colby Rushing had four hits in Game 3, including a two-run blast. Rushing had 14 hits in seven playoff games this season.

As for the future, most of this year’s young club will be back. Two eighth-graders and one ninth-grader were regular starters this season.

Both McDaniel and Warren will return and the key will be finding some pitching depth behind them and replacements for leadoff hitter Rushing and Harris (six home runs, 33 RBIs) in the cleanup spot. But as the Eagles have shown, reloading, not rebuilding, is the operative word.

“PCA baseball is still going up,” Rushing said. “A lot of people have thought we were going to go down. They’ve said that the past three or four years. Porters Chapel is going to be all right.”