Even in a year when Division I had so much parity, Bishop Hendricken still rose above the rest.

The Hawks tangled with No. 1-seeded South Kingstown in the title series at McCoy Stadium, beating the Rebels twice more than they had lost all season to bring a fifth straight championship back to Warwick.

Hendricken has won 21 D-I state championships and eight of the last nine.

“I think it’s just our tradition,” Hendricken manager Ed Holloway said. “They really believe that they’re going to win. We always say, ‘We don’t hope to win, we expect to win.’ I think we just got better down the stretch. We got lucky in the playoffs to get to McCarthy, but the kids just expect to win.”

South Kingstown had not lost since Opening Day, winning 22 games in a row following a sweep of Johnston in the Final Four round. The Hawks tossed ace and series MVP Matt Kennedy in Game 1 to steal a win as the road team, 3-1. They took care of business in a sloppy Game 2, emerging victorious after captain Brendan Conley’s 2-run double made the difference, 6-4.

Rebels ace Greg Kay had yet to allow an earned run with his team down 4-2 in the third. Conley, working as the No. 9 hitter after suffering a laceration on his left hand during the semifinals, stepped in with runners at first and second and two down. He laced a liner down the left field line to score Billy Roberge and Colin McBride, dealing the decisive blow and giving Hendricken a 6-2 lead at the time.

“Once the adrenaline kicks in, you don’t feel it much,” Conley, playing through five stitches on his hand, said. “It was a struggle, I obviously was out of Game 2 [in the semis] and then sat out two or three days of practice. The day before, I said ‘I have to be out there.’ I waited and I got the call this year. Once I got out here, it was like being at home.”

Hendricken sophomore Nico Salvaggio got the ball in Game 2 and allowed his only earned runs in the fifth. Blaine Lidsky crushed an RBI triple past the dive of Conley in right field, and he came home on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Greg Ballinger to make it 6-4.

Salvaggio settled in and pitched a shutdown sixth inning on just 12 pitches. He yielded just five hits and three walks through six innings while striking out one on 80 pitches. Salvaggio was able to get big outs when he needed them, most notably a double-play grounder with the bases loaded and one down in the first inning.

“I was nervous, I’m not gonna lie,” Salvaggio said with a laugh. “I was shaking, I was jittery. But as soon as I threw that first pitch, I kind of buckled down, got into it and just really focused, got in my groove. Just went from there.”

Closer Chris Hindle only took five pitches to get through South Kingstown’s 2-3-4 hitters. Hindle got a soft tapper back to the mound off Lidsky’s bat and threw on to first for the final out. Then, a familiar sight as the Hawks stormed the infield to celebrate their fifth title in a row.

“[First baseman Andrew] Hopgood is a really close friend of mine, so it was cool to share that moment, making the last out like that,” Hindle, who celebrated a football championship with Hopgood in the fall, said. “Nothing but excitement.”

Kay received little help from his defense in the opening frames. An error at third base allowed leadoff hitter and captain Dante Baldelli to reach, and he would later score on a balk for the game’s first run. The Hawks pushed across another unearned run after Hopgood’s RBI triple brought Matt Sweeney home.

Errors plagued Hendricken early on, too. Sam Kenyon was hit by a pitch to start the second, and a miscue by Salvaggio allowed him to reach scoring position. He would later score on a fielder’s choice to cut the deficit in half, 2-1.

The unlikely heroes for the Hawks hit their stride in the second. The bottom of the order, comprised of Roberge, McBride and Conley, scored four times on the night to give Hendricken a boost. Roberge reached on an error, got to second on a sacrifice and later scored with Conley on an errant flip to second base that extended the lead to 4-1.

“Just our resilience, it speaks to the entire team,” Conley said of the bottom third of the order’s performance. “It’s funny, I’ve only been in the bottom of the order since this happened.”

The Rebels’ potent offense, which scored more runs than any team in D-I this season, looked poised to strike in the third inning. Kevin Roberts led the inning off with a perfect bunt single, though he looked to be doubled up when Brendan Blessing grounded the ball to second baseman Elijah Brown. Brown, one of the best defensive infielders in the division, had trouble getting rid of the ball and both runners reached.

Hendricken got another avenue for escape after Lidsky grounded to shortstop, but the throw got away and loaded the bases with no one out. The next batter, Ballinger, had grounded into a bases-loaded double play in the first, and he would have the same bad luck in the third. His 4-3 double play did bring Roberts home to make it 4-2, but it stunted the growing momentum.

“We always try to just stay calm in the field,” Brown said of the early defensive woes. “South Kingstown is really known for getting their runs in bunches, so for us to just stay calm and get the next one, that was huge for us.”

The Hawks’ experience put them over the top with 21 players who were either juniors or seniors on the roster. Their previous time at McCoy had them familiar with the territory and the nerves, and the team knew how important that was.

“A lot of kids have been here before and they know what it takes to get here,” Brown, who went 2-for-2 in baseball championships since transferring to Hendricken from Moses Brown, said. “So really [it] just came from the heart. It had to be a real team effort.”

“We have guys that come back every year that know the feeling of playing at McCarthy and McCoy, and I think that’s what kind of separates us from other teams,” three-time champion Baldelli said. “Not everyone gets to come here five years in a row and compete for a championship, but luckily we had the chance to do that this year.”

Of the few returning players on the roster, Salvaggio will be the top prospect to watch. In the most important game of his career to date, the sophomore came through and the resulting confidence poured over into predictions for 2017.

“It’s gonna be awesome,” Salvaggio said of next season. “It’s gonna be a privilege to play for this team again. We’re gonna win another state championship next year.”