Fort Scott ? Baldwin High coach Mike Berg hopes his team won’t look back at its 20-7 state sectional loss Friday night to Fort Scott and think what could have been.

“I think they’re going to look back on this season as, ‘What a great season it was,'” said Berg, whose Bulldogs (9-3) advanced the deepest they’d been in the playoffs since 1988.

Then again, considering Baldwin shut down the Tigers in the second half, it could be hard not to imagine the Bulldogs playing another week.

“Yep, those coulda-woulda-shouldas,” senior tailback Micah Mason said. “But you can’t do that. It’s a game of heartbreak. There are so many things that could go right, so many things that could go wrong on one play.”

Mason, Baldwin’s senior standout, again led the Bulldog charge, gaining 140 yards on 20 carries.

His toughest run of the night set up Baldwin’s only scoring opportunity. Mason took a delayed draw up the middle before meeting a slew of would-be tacklers. After bouncing off a few, Mason decided the nearest sideline was his safest route to the end zone.

Mason was ruled down at the one after a 68-yard run. Kyle Flory plunged in, giving Baldwin a 7-6 lead.

But mistakes soon proved fatal for the Bulldogs.

Fleet-footed Fort Scott quarterback Trenton Stepps fumbled on the Tigers’ ensuing drive, but the slick QB wrestled the ball from a pile of Bulldogs.

On the next play, Stepps found Augaio Guffin for a 44-yard touchdown strike.

“It was one of those games we had to take our shots when we could, and we were fortunate when we did,” Fort Scott coach Bob Campbell said.

Fort Scott, which is trying to make its fifth straight state-championship game, converted a long third-down play with just over a minute left in the first half when Stepps hit Guffin for an 18-yard gain.

The two hooked up on the next play for an eight-yard touchdown strike, and Fort Scott took a 20-7 lead when Guffin caught a two-point conversion pass.

The Bulldogs limited the Tigers to just two first downs in the remaining 24 minutes.

“We were really lacking energy and emotion during that first half,” Mason said. “But we came out that second half and had that spark.”

Baldwin’s spark, however, couldn’t create points.

After a strong drive to open the third quarter, Mason was snuffed on fourth-and-two inside Fort Scott territory.

The play was Baldwin’s best shot in the second half because the Bulldogs twice turned over the ball with fumbles and once on downs.

“That was pretty much the story of the whole game. We couldn’t do anything to finish it,” Mason said.

But the senior standout, who eclipsed the 2,000-yard rushing mark for the year in his last game, said the loss to a “great” Fort Scott team couldn’t cloud Baldwin’s success.

“I’m just looking forward to the years to come,” Mason said. “I’m gone now, but this will always be my hometown team.”