The Jeffers High School varsity baseball team poses with the Division 4 District 97 championship trophy after defeating Ironwood on Friday, June 3, 2022, in Ironwood, Mich. (Jason Juno/Ironwood Daily Globe)

IRONWOOD — Ironwood returned to the district championship game, but their bid to defend its district title came up short as they fell to a solid Jeffers team 13-2 on Friday.

The Red Devils upset Hancock in Tuesday’s opener and they defeated Ontonagon 12-4 in Friday’s semifinal to get to the final for the second year in a row.

The Jets proved to be a formidable opponent, with a tough pitcher in Levi Frahm, strong defense behind him and a punishing lineup. The young Devils finished the season at 16-11 while putting themselves in position for more hardware.

Ironwood was working as many as five freshmen into its lineup that featured a good group of seniors, including Sean Korpela and Gavin Delich that coach Adam Mackey called “big-time leaders,” along with others he said would be missed as well – Aidan Graser, Von Lyons, Aiden Ozzello and Jestin Matusewic.

“These guys are setting a bar here where we expect to be playing for that district championship every year,” Ironwood coach Adam Mackey said. “Hopefully the younger guys are watching that, they can continue that success because it’s always fun playing for a championship.”

Despite Jeffers getting a pair of first-inning runs off Korpela, Ironwood’s ace, Ironwood looked ready to battle for another upset in this tournament.

They responded with two of their own off Jeffers’ ace, Frahm, who many probably remember as a great shooter for the school’s excellent basketball team.

Ironwood’s Cody Dabb singled with two outs to start the rally. Delich singled and Rukus Betlewski was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Evan Oja’s fly ball dropped into short leftfield, two runs scored and the game was tied.

“That curveball wasn’t working yet, that’s what we jumped on,” Mackey said. “He was a little erratic with that curveball, so he was only throwing that fastball for strikes and we were sitting on it, we were waiting on it. I feel like as soon as he got that curveball going, that’s when things went south for us at the plate.”

Ironwood only managed two hits the rest of the game as Frahm struck out seven and helped his team to a district title.

The Jets hit the ball, too. The Devils helped them out with some misplays in the field – five of them in all – but they also had 10 hits and put the ball in play early and often.

“Our whole lineup, really our 1 through 9 can hit the ball and our subs come in and they hit the ball just as well,” Jeffers coach Luke Paul said.

“We had to play a near-perfect game to give ourselves a chance to win at the end,” Mackey said. “I think for the most part we did that. But we just had a few blunders, dropped fly balls, making bad throws. … you play a team that can hit the ball so well, and they’ve got speed all over. Every single guy can run, it’s amazing. You have to make plays and at the end of the day we just didn’t make enough of them.”

And the Jeffers defense really didn’t make mistakes.

“Their defense is pretty solid,” Mackey said. “They made a couple of nice running catches in the outfield, they made a couple of nice plays in the infield. They’re so quick with that ball, they get the ball in that glove so quick and in their hands and out so quickly, it makes it tough to get anyone on base.”

It was the first district title for Jeffers, a veteran team. Paul said pitching has been the key. They have a couple of quality starters.

“Strong pitching is always the key with high school baseball,” he said. “Levi throws hard. He throws hard and throws strikes and it’s hard to barrel up a good baseball. When you have hard baseball and his off-speed, he’s a tough kid to hit.”

Korpela took the loss in four-plus innings of work. Betlewski and Gavin Delich finished.

Ironwood beat Jeffers last year as part of its run to a district title.

“Last year, we lost to them in the semifinals, so I know the guys really wanted to come back and see them in the finals this year and win it,” Paul said.

Jeffers, which beat Lake Linden-Hubbell 16-3 in the other semifinal Friday, will be back in Ironwood on Wednesday to face Norway in a regional semifinal at Lorenson Field at 4 p.m.

“Coming back to a field that we played at now, I think that’s going to be huge, a little advantage for us for sure,” Paul said. “We’re definitely already used to it, our pitchers are used to the mound and it’s always a big one, getting used to a mound at a new field.”

Ironwood started Friday with a win over Ontonagon. The Devils hit the ball well in a five-run first inning – Landon Buerger tripled, Cody Dabb, the starting pitcher, doubled, and Robert Roberts drove in two with a double.Betlewski also pitched in that game.