After tossing six strong innings with three strikeouts and two walks in a WVSSAC Class AAA state softball elimination game, Morgan came up to bat in the eighth inning of a tie ballgame and delivered what proved to be the game-winning RBI double to lift the Monarchs to a 5-4 victory over St. Albans at Craft Field to keep her team’s season alive.

“I knew we had to pull through for my birthday,” Morgan said with a laugh. “It was amazing.”

An error kick-started JM’s eighth frame and Adrianna Skrzyneki provided a sacrifice bunt to set the table for the birthday girl as Morgan sent the deciding hit into left-center field.

John Marshall will now face Lincoln County today at 9:30 a.m. with the winner heading to the state title game to face Jefferson at 2 p.m. and the loser going home.

The Monarchs, who lost the tournament opener in large part due to four errors in the 11th inning that gave Jefferson five runs in the frame, surrendered a lead in the bottom of the seventh of both games.

Jadin Conrad doubled to begin St. Albans’ seventh inning down 4-2. An error kept things going and Tayven Stephenson evened the score with a two-run single.

“It’s been a season like that where we get down and we come back, we get down again and we come back,” JM coach Ed West said.

“(Wednesday) was another example of that. Ryleigh pitched superbly through six innings and Kadence (Pettit) came in and finished them off. It was just an all-out effort. We just made a couple of fielding mistakes. It seems like every game we have one or two innings that for some reason we can’t field the ball.”

The Monarchs tallied five errors in each game.

“We were really down after that first game (a 6-2 loss to Jefferson),” West said. “That was such a tough, hard loss. We were really down but we picked ourselves back up. We said, ‘Hey look. We get to play again. Forget that one. We’ll come back and play strong and try to win the next one.'”

John Marshall struck first in the elimination game as Paytyn Tucker singled, Ava Blake reached on an error and Megan Dougherty belted a three-run home run over the left-center field fence for a 3-0 JM cushion in the first inning.

“She has a nice swing,” West said of Dougherty’s homer. “When she connects she can definitely knock it out of there.”

An error later in the frame extended the lead to 4-0.

However, two more errors by the Monarchs cut the lead in half during the fourth inning.

St. Albans tried to pull even closer in the bottom of the sixth but Morgan was not phased in the circle as she escaped a jam with runners on second and third.

“My mindset going into the game was just, ‘It’s do or die,'” Morgan said. “You just have to play as hard as you can and leave it all out on the field. I was just trying to make sure I stayed calm.”

Pettit earned the win in the circle with a trio of strikeouts in two innings of relief.

Shelby Koontz had a solid day at the plate with a pair of hits in the win-or-go-home battle.

Jefferson 6, John Marshall 2

In the opener, John Marshall was one out away from advancing to the winner’s bracket but Jefferson plated a run in the seventh to send the game to extras.

Jefferson took advantage of four John Marshall errors in the 11th inning to score five runs and secure the victory that sent the Monarchs into the loser’s bracket.

John Marshall’s Sophia Adkins smashed a home run in the first inning.