Last year Gershkoff/Auburn Post 20’s route to the American Legion state championship wasn’t a simple one. The team lost its opening game in both the first and second round of the playoffs, having to come behind in both to win the best-of-three series. And it didn’t get easier in the Final Four, where Gershkoff dropped its first game in the double-elimination tournament before rallying back to claim the state title.

This year’s playoff run has gone much smoother. Gershkoff, which finished the regular season 10th overall at 10-9, swept seventh-ranked Navigant Credit Union [11-8] in the opening round of the postseason last weekend.

Gershkoff took game one, 8-6, on the strength of a pair of home runs from catcher Shane O’Connell and, when O’Connell went down with an injury that forced him to miss game two, the hits kept coming. Post 20 slugged five more home runs, with three coming from first baseman Dan Hopkins, in the team’s 14-6 series-clinching win against Navigant at Cranston West on Saturday.

“When we lost Shane I was a little concerned,” Gershkoff manager Dave Schiappa said. “We’re definitely a more explosive lineup with him in it. But I think that the team saw that and they all picked it up a notch. Shane got us going with those two home runs in the first game and it was infectious. They rallied around him and they really kept it going.”

Armed with a 1-0 lead in the series, Gershkoff wasn’t shy about putting more runs on the board Saturday. Justin Costa led off the first inning with a walk, Steve Beneduce singled and Hopkins cleared the bases with a three-run blast to left-center.

Gershkoff took that 3-0 lead into the third, where Hopkins kicked off another rally with a two-out solo home run to deep center field.

“When you start hitting, everyone believes that they can hit too,” Schiappa said. “It is such a confidence thing and there confidence level is so high now when they’re going to the plate. Those guys all think that they’re going to get a hit no matter what.”

Mike Saccoccio followed with a single and Mike McClarnon with a two-run homer to left, making the score 6-0.

The team added seven more runs on hits from Costa, Beneduce, Jeff Diehl, Mike Hayden and a three-run shot well over the left-center field fence from McClarnon.

“Everyone is hitting,” Schiappa said. “Guys like McClarnon, who hit a couple deep balls over the weekend, hasn’t been doing that for me all summer. But now he’s starting to. So is Saccoccio. And Hopkins? He’s been unstoppable so far. Every time he makes contact he’s putting it at least to the warning track. The bottom line is that we are getting a ton of home runs right now, which is huge.”

But it’s not just Gershkoff’s power that carried it to a first-round sweep. The team is getting production from every spot in the lineup and is taking advantage of every opportunity that is presented.

“You don’t know what your hitting is going to do, you never do,” Schiappa said. “But this is the time to shine and we really did that. Some of the younger guys, like Steve Beneduce and Anthony Pagano, struggled with the bats during the year.

They were hit-or-miss during the regular season: now they’re just hit.”

Combine that with outstanding defense and a string of solid pitching and Gershkoff becomes one of the most underrated teams remaining in the playoffs. Post 20 was the only lower-seeded team to advance to the second round of the postseason and celebrated with a 5-2 win over No. 2-ranked Gordon Greene in the first game of the second round on Monday.

A win Tuesday or Wednesday would send Gershkoff, the defending state champion, back to the Final Four for a shot at a second consecutive title.

“Last year we went three games every series,” Schiappa said. “We’d lose the first one and then have to win the next two. So for this team to sweep the first series and then win the first game in round two, that is huge. Our defense has always been excellent and we’ve always had good pitching but our offense has been up and down. But now it’s all starting to come together.”