Photo by Andrew Grimm Harrison Central softball head coach Darrin Young congratulates his players after the final out of the Huskies’ 2-1 OVAC 4A semifinals victory over Beaver Local on Wednesday evening at the I-470 JB Chambers Sports Complex. Harrison Central will face Oak Glen for the championship on Friday.

ELM GROVE — For six innings in Wednesday’s OVAC Class 4A semifinal, Harrison Central got runners on, but could not come up with a timely hit as Weir High’s Eliza Utt was keeping them off the scoreboard.

The Huskies, though, were still within striking distance thanks to strong pitching of their own, and finally broke through in the top of the seventh.

A Kara Blackburn RBI single and Mikayala Pelegreen sac fly in back-to-back at-bats gave the Huskies their first lead, and Pelegreen worked out of a jam in the bottom of the inning to seal the deal on a a comeback, 2-1, victory over the defending champ Red Riders at the I-470 Complex.

It was the third meeting between the teams; Weir High had won both regular season contests.

“That was a tough game, we knew it was going to be a tough game,” Harrison Central head coach Darrin Young said. “The first time we didn’t have our full line up and they beat us pretty good, the second time we were closer and it was a heck-of-a ballgame in Cadiz and I knew tonight would be a good ballgame, too.

“We’ve started seeing the ball better and hitting the ball — if you can get enough to beat (Utt), that’s a tough task. We left a lot of runners on, but we kept scrapping and I told them this is the time of year where you have to be scrappy.”

The victory gives the Huskies (18-7) a return trip to the I-470 Complex for Friday night’s conference championship game against Oak Glen. Harrison Central had been in the semifinals four of the last five seasons but had not been able to reach the championship game.

“I told them on the way down here we’ve been here four times and never gotten to come back for the championship, so it’s a big deal for the program,” Young said. “I’m really happy for this group, they deserve it and this program deserves it. We’ve been waiting a while for this, but the work is not done. We want to come back and win one more down here.”

After taking the lead, the Huskies had to hold on for dear life to get to the final. The Red Riders’ last gasp came with the bottom of the order up, and a single and an error put two runners on, a sac bunt giving the Red Riders (21-7) runners on second and third with just one out and the top of the order coming up.

Pelegreen, though, fired her third strikeout in her two scoreless innings of relief work, getting Utt, the No. 1 hitter, looking for a pivotal second out.

The Huskies intentionally walked Rayna Hoover, then got a pop up to end the game on a great running catch in foul territory by first baseman Kamryn Crothers.

Weir’s lone run of the game came in the fourth inning on a Brayley Lash sac fly. Outside of that, Emma Skinner (five innings, one strikeout, one walk) and Pelegreen (two scoreless innings, three strikeouts, one walk) kept the Riders line up at bay.

“The two of them complement each other beautifully,” Young said of his pitcher. “That is a great team and a tough line up one-through-nine. They’re all hard outs. I’m just real proud of my team, we pitched well and played good defense and did just enough offensively.”

Utt took the tough luck loss in the circle, striking out six and walking just one in going all seven innings.

“You’re not going to beat anyone scoring one run,” Weir High head coach John Leary said. “Give all the credit in the world to Harrison Central, they came down here ready to play and they beat us. There is no excuses to be made, they out-played us and made all the plays they needed to make, they pitched well and they got the runs they needed. It’s disappointing because we basically brought back the same team that won it last year and one of our goals was to repeat, and we didn’t get that done.

“I’m not satisfied with our hitting approach the last couple of games. We’ve got to figure that out or it’s going to be a short postseason for us.

“Eliza pitched great, she got a little tired toward the end but she had a lot of tough situations to battle though. You can’t go out and put up one run and just say to you pitcher, ‘Alright, go hold them down now.’ You’ve got to give her run support and we didn’t. Even in the last inning, she did a good job of keeping it at 2-1.

“We had the tying run at third and the winning run at second with one out and we didn’t make good contact at all. Hopefully they’ll remember situations like that in the tournament. We’ve got to take it as a lesson and get ready for the tournament now.”

Friday’s championship game between the Huskies and Golden Bears is slated to start at 7 p.m.