Huff’s late heroics send Patriots into postseason

Liberty softball coach Kris Jensen would like to take credit for planning the perfect late scenario Thursday, but it happened entirely by chance.

The Patriots, who trailed 4-2 and seemed buried just moments earlier, had scrapped to load the bases with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning.

And then their top player stepped up to the plate.

Junior Brittany Huff stroked a bases-clearing triple to right field to help the Patriots rally for a 6-4 home victory over Green Valley. The win secured Liberty (19-10, 8-6 Southeast League) a No. 4 seed in next week’s Sunrise Region tournament and ended the season for the 2010 region champion Gators.

The Patriots and Green Valley (18-10, 8-6) finished the regular season with identical league records, but Liberty advanced on the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association’s second tie-breaker.

Though his squad entered the season as one of the favorites out of the Southeast, Jensen feared it was all over after Green Valley pitcher Fenixx Henderson retired the first two Patriots in the sixth.

“At one point, I was thinking to myself, 'What am I going to say to wrap up this season?’” Jensen said. “And then, we were suddenly in the tournament.”

The two-out rally was relatively unimpressive until Huff’s at-bat, with a hit batsman and infield singles by Katlyn Kapral and Rhiannon Beck.

Even Huff thought the inning was over when the ball came off her bat.

“I thought it was another pop-up because I’d hit two earlier in the game,” said Huff, who went 2-for-4 with two triples. “Then I saw it drop.”

Huff’s hit made it 5-4. Francesca Foti followed with an RBI single, and the Gators appeared stunned in going down without a threat in the seventh.

Foti, the winning pitcher, was 3-for-4 with three RBIs to help Liberty.

“We’ve had a lot of heartbreakers this year,” Jensen said. “But the most exciting thing about this win is that the bottom of the lineup stepped up for us with two outs.”

Green Valley led 2-1 after four innings, and stretched its advantage to 4-2 on an RBI fielder’s choice off the bat of Megan Barrera in the fifth and an RBI single by Chelsea Anderson in the sixth.

Anderson went 3-for-4 to lead Green Valley.