Liberty may have had an easy run through the East Penn Conference tournament and District 11 postseason, but they always knew things would be different in their journey to reach the PIAA finals again.

That became evidently clear on Monday night when the Hurricanes came back from a two run deficit in the bottom of the seventh and pulled through in nine innings to top District One’s fifth-seed Avon Grove 6-5 at DeSales University.

JC Spinosa’s sacrifice fly in the ninth inning scored Tate George for the game-winning run and Liberty advanced to take on North Penn in Thursday’s PIAA quarterfinals.

After five straight mercy-rule wins in the conference and district tournaments, Monday’s win snapped an unsustainable streak of dominance, but head coach Andy Pitsilos and this roster of experienced players never wavered.

“We have been in games like this over the past two years,” Pitsilos said. “So my take is that our kids never quit and battled to the end and lucky for us we came out on top.”

The Hurricanes (20-4) started their seventh inning comeback from a 5-3 deficit with a sac fly by Tommy Mason and then tied the game up with Noah Gyauch-Quirk scoring on a wild pitch.

Avon Grove scored three runs in the sixth to take the lead before ultimately seeing it fade away.

Liberty now sets their focus on District One third-seed North Penn, who belted Hazleton 10-0 in five-innings on Monday. Hazleton was the last team to beat Liberty during a 4-0 loss on April 24.

“Every state game will be like this,” said Pitsilos. “We will be seeing tough pitching throughout so we have to limit mistakes and take advantage of situations when they arise.”