LANARK Everything stopped except the runners on base, as Kaitlyn Liebing popped a high fly ball to left field in the fifth inning Saturday.

The Amboy junior put her head down to run. The bases which were packed with Clippers started to empty, as there were two outs.

The ball floated toward Newman's Rachel Grennan in left field. She moved to her left, the ball hit the heel of her glove, rolled forward and dropped into the grass in front of her.

Three runners scored, the Clippers took the lead, and a couple short innings later clinched the 1A Eastland Regional title with a 3-2 win over the Newman Comets. It is the fourth regional title in a row for Amboy (19-9).

The Clippers advance to the 1A Pearl City Sectional, where they will meet Hiawatha in the semifinals at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

"When the girls in front of me got on base, and they were loaded, I knew I had to come through then," Liebing said. "That was our chance. We hadn't seen this girl before, and we weren't hitting her as well. We just needed to score there."

Newman (14-12) freshman Sam Miller had stymied the Amboy bats leading into fifth inning.

To that point, she had allowed one hit a ground-rule double by Delaney Wilhelm while striking out six.

"Our thought was that they hadn't seen her the first two games," Newman coach J.D. Waldschmidt said. "They saw Lakyn [Waldschmidt]. In the first game, she had blown it past them for most of the game. They caught up to her the second game. We thought Sam would give them a different look."

The fifth started with a strikeout of Courtney Rhine. After that, Hannah McCoy coaxed Amboy's lone walk of the game.

Originally posted here:

Softball: Clippers win fourth straight regional title