SPRINGFIELD — The Amherst girls lacrosse team took home its second Western Mass. championship in program history, winning the Class B final, 10-6, over Belchertown on Tuesday night at Springfield Central.

After the Hurricanes surrendered an early lead, the Orioles tied the game up at 6-6 with just over three minutes to play in the third quarter. Amherst called a timeout to talk things over, with Kiko Bhowmik getting the lead back for her team just before the end of the frame.

With a 7-6 lead heading into the fourth, the Hurricanes made an effort to control possession of the ball as much as possible. Belchertown had dominated possession in the middle quarters, helping surmount the early comeback.

“Off the draw, getting that possession was the entire difference,” Amherst head coach Andy MacDougall said. “When Belchertown has the ball, they’re scoring. You know, we can’t do anything unless we get it.”

With the ball on the attacking end for most of the final quarter for the Hurricanes, the team tacked on three goals of insurance, with the final buzzer putting a cap on a great finish to the night.

Bhowmik had the ball on her stick for a good chunk of Tuesday’s game, tallying a pair of goals and an assist while providing her teammates with an outlet all night long.

Ava Carey was the engine for Amherst in the win, though, with the offense running through the senior. It paid dividends more often than not, with Carey scoring three goals and adding two assists.

The pair of seniors have been huge for the Hurricanes all season long, with both Bhowmik and Carey stepping up in the biggest game of the season.

“When the game is on the line, people know that they can rely on them, and so we’ll find them to get them the ball,” MacDougall said of the duo. “… Them being able to to control the ball, allow us to eat some minutes off the clock. It really was enough for us to get over the tipping point.”

Amherst’s seniors were leaned on especially hard due to the determination from the Orioles on the other end. After losing the only other matchup this season between the two squads 15-1, Belchertown was determined to get redemption.

The Hurricanes got out to a 3-0 lead through the first quarter of Tuesday night’s contest, but the Orioles came out of the break with a new burst of energy.

Belchertown dominated possession in the second quarter, starting with Lia Pikul earning multiple draw controls. With the ball on their attacking end, the Orioles tallied two quick goals to shrink the lead, eventually heading into halftime down 5-3.

“I think the nerves and everything kind of jumped on [us] little bit at the start,” Belchertown head coach Jarrod Lemke said. “Once we relaxed and settled in, and we went back over it, we saw how that started to work. I feel like we possessed the ball [a lot] in the second quarter, which I was super happy with.”

The third quarter was more of the same for the Orioles, scoring three unanswered goals to tie the game at six. Despite the final score not ending in their favor, the team showed great fight to battle back and re-gain momentum multiple times throughout the night.

Pikul was huge on the attacking end as well for Belchertown, continuing to make her mark on what has been an impressive season to this point. The junior tallied a hat trick in the loss, leaving everything she had out on the field.

With the loss, the Orioles now wait for their state tournament matchup to be solidified, hoping to bounce back after coming up short of what would’ve been an impressive comeback.

“This is our third loss in the finals since I’ve been here. It’s hard, sometimes, to motivate, whether they’re motivating themselves, or I’m motivating them, the next couple of days, before we head out there,” Lemke said. “We’re [going to] try to do some fun over the next few days, and then, probably Friday, lock into what we need to do for the tournament.”

Amherst has some time to celebrate the victory, also waiting to find out who its preliminary matchup will be in the state tournament. MacDougall’s squads have yet to make it out of the first round of the state tournament in his tenure, hoping to ride the momentum of Tuesday’s win and make a run.