The Northwestern Lehigh softball team saved it’s best for last.

The last inning, that is.

Playing in the PIAA quarterfinals at Central Columbia High School in Bloomsburg, the Tigers posted five runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to beat Valley View High School 6-1 in what was primarily a pitcher’s duel for most of the game.

Tiger sophomore Emma Freeman and Valley View senior Abby Call are both strong pitchers who have fought their way through the postseason by limiting opposing hitters.

Call worked around a first-and-third jam in the first inning and then recorded two strikeouts in the second inning to strand a Northwestern runner at second base. Her invincibility was interrupted by a fielding error in the bottom of the third that brought Abby Dunstan to the plate with runners on first and second.

Dunstan grounded a ball through the middle to bring home Sage Toman for a 1-0 lead.

Cougar third baseman Ella Swingle, who made the error, got a little revenge when she delivered an RBI double in the top of the fourth to tie the game 1-1.

Freeman went the rest of the way giving up just a sixth-inning single and recording five of her six strikeouts from that point on. Call also settled in after surrendering the RBI single to Dunstan and retired the next seven batters.

With one out in the bottom of the sixth, the northwestern sophomore duo of Lily Kinnon and Ella Bressi went to work as the game became a game of inches.

Kinnon found an open spot just beyond second base to drop the ball in for her first hit of the game. Bressi delivered a perfect bunt to move Kinnon into scoring position.

A wild pitch moved Kinnon to third ahead of Rylee McGinley’s walk. McGinley isn’t one to hang around on first base for long as she stole her 15th base of the season to give Northwestern runners on second and third with two outs.

“When I reached first base,” said Kinnon. “I knew we were going to score because everybody coming up behind me is great at putting the bat on the ball and I knew we were going to do something good there. We played really well defensively and then we got the bats going in that inning.”

Toman and Izzy Akelaitis are the lone seniors on the Tigers’ roster and they both know that one loss ends their high school career.

Toman used it as an incentive in the opening round of states and she did it again when she grounded a ball that barely avoided the glove of Swingle as she dove into the hole. The hit brought in two runs and Toman wound up at second on a throw to the plate.

Akelaitis looked to make sure that her senior season was extended when she delivered a mirror image of Toman’s hit with the ball inches away from the tip of first baseman Zoie Krupovitch’s glove to bring in her classmate and make it a 4-1 lead.

Dunstan is still just a sophomore, but she wasn’t going to be left out of the fun. Call delivered a 3-2 pitch that the Tiger catcher jumped all over, lifting it high in the air to center field. The ball carried over Eva Canevari’s head, landing five feet on the other side of the fence, giving Northwestern a 6-1 edge.

“I really wasn’t sure if it was [a home run] when I hit it, but I hoped that it was,” said Dunstan with a laugh. “We can hit throughout our lineup and hitting is contagious, so as soon as Lily got that hit, we just went on a roll. You can’t count us out when we get into a two-out situation, no matter what.”

Freeman turned the seventh inning into a formality as she got a strikeout and two groundouts to finish off the Cougars.

“I felt really good about how we were making contact throughout the game against a really good pitcher,” said Northwestern coach Kate Farber. “And I just thought it was a matter of time because we were knocking on the door and eventually, we would string something together.”