Wilson Hall was staring at Game 3 for the SCISA AAA state softball championship.
For Liza Lowder, she was the one who was facing a 2-2 count with two on in the top of the seventh with Cardinal Newman leading 3-2. But Lowder short fly ball that dropped just fair inside the first base line, scoring Madison Elmore and Drake Ives for a 4-3 Wilson Hall lead.
But the runners-up to Laurence Manning in 2017 did not settle for a one-run cushion going to the bottom of the seventh. Becka Noyes delivered an RBI single that scored Lowder for a 5-3 lead. That was followed by a 2-run inside-the-park home run Madison Sliwanik for a 7-3 lead for the Barons.
Ives would close things out in the bottom of the seventh, recording her 15th strikeout of the game for the final out as Wilson Hall celebrated its first state championship on the diamond since 2014 and third overall.
Head coach Teresa Alexander said it was a credit to her team that it was able to come back from the disappointment of last year's loss to Laurence Manning in the state finals.