DIXFIELD — Inexplicably dormant at times during the regular season, Dirigo’s offense awoke during Thursday’s quarterfinal with Hall-Dale.

The Cougars pounded out 10 hits and got contributions from every part of the lineup to overcome an early scare from the upset-minded Bulldogs and win their ninth consecutive postseason game, 9-3, at Harlow Park on Thursday.

Tyler Frost led the onslaught by going 3-for-4 with two doubles, two RBIs and three runs scored. Jack Brown and Kaine Hutchins each added a double and single.

No. 2 Dirigo (14-3), the two-time defending Class C champion, will host No. 3 St. Dom’s (13-4) in the semifinals on Saturday.

“We’ve had a couple of guys in slumps this year,” Frost said. “I was in a slump in the beginning of the year, then Jack and Kaine. But we all broke out of it today. Everyone was hitting the ball. We were aggressive.”

“If I saw a good pitch, I put the bat on it,” Hutchins said. “We’ve been working on my swing a little bit, trying to get back in the rhythm. I was trying to stop being so anxious. I swung at a first pitch, I guess, which doesn’t really follow that, but it works.”

Hutchins’ first-pitch swing in the first produced an RBI double that gave the Cougars the early advantage on Hall-Dale starter Taylor Lockhart.

The Bulldogs answered by scoring a pair off Hutchins in the second, on a pickoff throw that got by the first baseman and Tyler Dubois’ RBI single.

“We did hit the ball well,” Hall-Dale coach Bob Sinclair said. “In the prelims, we had 17 hits (in a 13-3 win over Traip). For a while there, we had Dirigo nervous.”

The Bulldogs (10-8) had a chance to widen their lead when Hutchins walked  a pair with one out in the third, but couldn’t take advantage.

The Cougars made the squander sting when they pushed four runs across in the fourth. Mitch Kubesh’s seeing-eye single bounced under the gloves of both the third baseman and shortstop to put Dirigo back in front. Frost and Brown added back-to-back RBI doubles to make it 5-2.

“Timely hitting, that was big today,” Dirigo coach Ryan Palmer said. “We were down 2-1, Lockhart wasn’t throwing that hard and we were still behind him and I got a little nervous. But good teams find ways to win and we did.”

Hall-Dale closed the deficit to 5-3 in the sixth off reliever Gavin Arsenault on Quinn Stebbins’ RBI single. Dubois walked to load the bases, but Arsenault got Jordan Gardner to hit a one-hopper back to the mound and threw home for the force out to end the threat.

Two Bulldog errors in the sixth helped the Cougars find more breathing room with a four-run inning.  Frost, who had an RBI single in that rally, closed it out in the seventh, allowing only a harmless single.