KEIZER — For five innings Saturday, Bend High looked like the club that has been almost unbeatable the past two months.

The last two innings, though, decided the Class 5A state baseball championship.

Sherwood, which trailed the Lava Bears 3-0 after five innings, scored 11 runs in the sixth and seventh innings to stun Bend 11-4 in the 5A state final at Volcanoes Stadium.

“We’ve been playing that way all year,” said Sherwood coach Jon Strohmaier, who also guided the Bowmen to the 2011 state title. “We’ve been behind in every game of the postseason. The kids don’t panic.”

With two outs in the top of the sixth, the Bowmen (25-6 overall) scored four runs to take a 4-3 lead; two of those runs scored on bases-loaded walks. The Northwest Oregon Conference champions put the game away with seven runs in the top of the seventh, taking advantage of four walks and a hit batter in the inning.

Bend (20-9), which was making its first state final appearance since the Bears won the old AAA title in 1987, had a chance to pull even or retake the lead in the bottom of the sixth when the score was 4-3, but they left the bases loaded. In the seventh, down 11-3, Justin Erlandson knocked in a run with a sacrifice fly, but Bend left two more runners on base when Sami Godlove grounded out to shortstop to end the game.

“We stranded too many runners today,” said Lava Bear coach Bret Bailey, whose team outhit the Bowmen 11-7 but left 13 runners on base for the game. “We had a chance to really break open the game early but we left guys on.”

Bend jumped on Sherwood starter Riley Moore early, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first inning to take a 2-0 lead. Erlandson led off the Bears’ first turn at bat with a double and scored three batters later on Jonah Koski’s RBI single. Duke DeGaetano drove home another run with a sacrifice fly to make the score 2-0, but Bend ended the inning with two runners on base.

Working with a two-run lead after the first inning, Lava Bear senior pitcher Caleb Gardner cruised on the mound until the sixth. Bend’s No. 2 starter for most of the season, Gardner retired the first nine batters he faced and allowed just one hit and one walk through the first five frames.

“I knew I had to throw strikes,” Gardner said. “They walk a lot and get hit a lot. (Sherwood batters drew nine walks and were hit five times by pitches in the Bowmen’s 5-4, 11-inning semifinal win over Redmond.) I really concentrated on getting ahead in the count.”

The Bears made it 3-0 in the bottom of the fifth when Nathan Miller lined a two-out single to right field that scored Koski from second base.

“The kids played great for (five) innings,” Bailey said.

Then the bottom fell out.

Sherwood leadoff hitter Joseph Balfour started the top of the sixth with a single to left field. Gardner got the next two batters to fly out, but then he walked pinch hitter Joseph Chamberlain, putting runners on first and second bases. Facing Sherwood’s No. 5 hitter, Alex Barzee, Gardner began to show signs of fatigue, including a wild pitch that allowed the Bowmen runners to advance to second and third. With the count 2-2, Barzee laced a double into right field that drove home both runners, making the score 3-2.

That was enough for Bailey, who replaced Gardner on the mound with DeGaetano, Bend’s pitching ace all season, who started Saturday’s final at second base. Working on three days’ rest — he threw a three-hit complete game Tuesday in the Bears’ 9-2 semifinal victory over Wilsonville — DeGaetano never got comfortable on the hill Saturday and issued three consecutive walks before being replaced by Dalton Hurd.

DeGaetano and Hurd each walked in a run, and Sherwood had grabbed a 4-3 lead and all the momentum by the time Bend went to bat in the bottom half of the inning.

“You make decisions and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t,” Bailey said of the pitching switch. “Caleb looked like he was running out of gas a little bit and he was getting up there in the pitch count.”

Gardner had thrown 87 pitches.

Barzee came up with another big hit in the seventh, knocking in two runs with a base-loaded single to stretch the Bowmen’s lead to 6-3. Sherwood ended up scoring seven runs in the seventh off three hits, four walks and a hit batter, putting Bend in an 11-3 hole with only one at-bat left.

Lava Bear senior Kyle Bailey opened the bottom of the seventh with a single — he eventually scored on Erlandson’s sacrifice fly — but Balfour, who took the mound in relief of Moore in the sixth inning, finished off the game by getting Godlove to ground out.

Barzee led the way for Sherwood, ending the game 2-for-4 with two runs scored and four RBIs. Balfour added a 3-for-5, two-RBI performance, but the Bowmen were aided in large part by the 10 walks issued by Bend pitchers.

Koski paced the Bears on offense, going 3-for-3 with one RBI in his final high school baseball game. Hurd also had three hits, and Erlandson, DeGaetano and Miller each recorded RBIs.

On the mound, Gardner struck out six batters and allowed three runs on three hits over 5 2⁄3 innings. DeGaetano was tagged with the loss, as the run he allowed gave Sherwood a 4-3 lead.

“I’m so proud to be part of this group,” said Gardner, adding that “I’ve played with a lot of these guys for six-plus years.”

“It’s not the way we wanted to end the season,” Koski said. “But I loved playing with this team. They’re like family.”