SOUTH ROYALTON — Rivendell Academy baseball coach Eric Reichert has been coming to the diamond in South Royalton for close to 40 years since his early days coaching summer ball in the 1980s.

The nine-year wait his Rivendell team had to beat White River Valley, the team that plays there, might have felt nearly as long.

The Raptors built an early lead and held on through the tense final innings to win, 4-3, over the Wildcats on a cloudy Friday afternoon. The win marks the first Rivendell victory over White River Valley since the school’s founding. White River Valley’s predecessor, South Royalton High, last fell to the Raptors in 2015 despite yearly meetings between the rivals.

Rivendell’s Will Knowles went the distance for the Raptors, displaying accuracy with both his fastball and curveball to notch six strikeouts and induce weak contact for several flyouts.

“I just trust him to control games, and he does,” said Reichert of his pitcher.

“Nobody else I’d want on the mound.”

White River Valley split the pitching duties, with Ty Couture throwing the majority of the game following an early hook of their starter. Couture pitched well and the Wildcats fielded well behind him, forcing Rivendell to earn each of its runs with good plate discipline and baserunning.

Rivendell landed the early blows, scoring single runs in the second, third and fifth innings on two RBI hits and a bases-loaded walk before the Wildcats got going on their own. Playing with the typical aggressive baserunning that’s been a hallmark of their success, the Wildcats produced two runs on just a single hit to slice the lead down to 3-2 entering the final stretch.

Parker Piper gave the Raptors an extra run of breathing room in the top of the inning with an RBI groundout, but the Wildcats still had some juice left.

Brayden Russ cracked the first pitch of the bottom of the inning deep to left field for a triple, then escaped a rundown to come home to cut the lead to just a run with no outs in the inning.

But after his heroics, the Wildcats ran out of juice, going down via strikeout, groundout and flyout to close the game out.

The Wildcats fell to 7-4 with the defeat. Graduation losses and opt-outs have put the team’s streak dating back to its South Royalton days of seven consecutive trips to Centennial Field for the state final in jeopardy, but the Wildcats have shown to be a tough out come postseason time.

Rivendell improved to 11-1, marking its highest win total since 2007. The Raptors have never reached a state final but see a strong chance in a wide-open field behind reigning champs Blue Mountain.

“I think we’re going into games thinking, ‘We’re gonna beat these guys,’ ” said Knowles. “And I don’t think we’ve had that before.”