After a tough first inning that saw the Streator softball team allowed Metamora to score a pair of unearned runs, the No. 5-seeded Bulldogs played the No.-3 seeded Redbirds even in Wednesday’s semifinal of the Class 3A Streator Regional at the SHS Athletic Fields.

However, that opening miscue, and a couple more along the way, were too much to overcome as Streator had its season come to a close with a 3-1 loss to Metamora.

Metamora (26-9) now advances to Friday’s 4:30 p.m. championship game against No. 2 East Peoria, who has topped the Redbirds twice this season.

“You’re right, this is a game where you can look back and think, if we hadn’t had the error in the first inning or we hadn’t had a couple runners picked off where would we have been,” Streator coach Louis Ondrey said, his squad finishing the season at 4-28. “We’ve had a couple of games this season where if we could have limited our mistakes it could have meant a different outcome.

“That said, these girls, like they have all season, just kept fighting to the end. I felt like the first time through the lineup we had some nerves and weren’t putting together as good of at-bats as we have been. Then the second and third time through we did a much better job making adjustments and putting the ball in play. In the end we had the tying run at the plate and in softball you just never know. We put ourselves in a couple good scoring opportunities but just weren’t able to capitalize on them.”

Metamora grabbed the lead for good in the bottom of the first as Addyson Wooden smacked a two-out double to left-center off Streator junior pitcher Raegan Morgan and scored on a throwing error on a grounder by Allie Nelson. Nelson then scored from second on a single to right off the bat of Kate Kucas.

The Redbirds tacked on a run in the third as Allie Lueddecke led off with a base hit and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Lucas to make it 3-0.

From there Morgan (5⅓ IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K) retired eight of the final 10 batters she faced with Natayla Solis coming on to record the final two outs in order.

“Reagan has come a long way this season for us,” Ondrey said. “She’s had her ups and downs this season, but today she did a great job of keeping us in the game. She was able to overcome a tough first inning and just did a great job of keeping their hitters off-balance.”

Streator, which had a pair of runners picked off first base by Metamora catcher Lueddecke, scored its lone run in the sixth when Caitlin Talty lined a double to the fence in center and scored on a two-out single by Solis.

Redbirds’ centerfielder Cara Craig made a nice running catch in the right-center field gap to end the inning and keep the Bulldogs from tying the game.

In the seventh, Streator’s Harmony Morgan poked a two-out double, but Metamora was able to retire the next batter to end the game.

Metamora starting pitcher Allie Nelson (3 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 4 K) earned the victory with relief help from Adi Weldon (4 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB. 3 K).

“We were able to get some runners on base but weren’t able really string much together,” Metamora coach Deric Linder said. “I didn’t really feel like we were dialed in all game and that’s something that’s going to have to change come Friday.

“Errors have been something has hurt us in some of our games this season, especially in our two losses to East Peoria, so hopefully we can bring the defense we showed today again Friday.”