No. 10 Tucson scored four runs in the bottom half of the seventh inning to beat No. 14 Corona del Sol 6-5 in the second round of the 6A Elimination Bracket held on Thursday at Cherry Field in Tucson. Tucson (25-8-1) will face No. 3 Sunnyside (28-6) on Saturday in round three of elimination play. The winner of that game would still need to win four games in a week to win the state championship. Sunnyside beat No. 7 Desert Vista 1-0 to set up the game with Tucson.

Corona del Sol (13-17) beat Sunnyside 7-2 in the first round on Saturday and the Aztecs took No. 6 Red Mountain to the limit in a 6-5 loss that came in eight innings of play. Tucson lost to Desert Vista 8-0 in the first round and the Badgers followed that up with a 12-0 run-rule victory over Desert Ridge on Tuesday.

The Badgers took a 1-0 lead on Corona del Sol in the bottom of the fourth inning on Thursday after Nana Lesley singled and Alyssa Torres brought her in two outs later. The Aztecs came right back in the top of the fifth on a walk from Brooke Sheehan, a single from Jaclyn Ibarra and an RBI from Madison Romero to tie the game up at 1-1 with one out. Jorgina Gant picked up the second out but Olivia Rios hit a short fly to center field to score Sheehan and then Saige Peters connected on a triple to score Romero and Rios for a 4-1 lead.

The Badgers got one back on a home run from Jiselle Nunez in the bottom of the sixth to cut the Aztec lead down to 4-2 but Isabelle Freund knocked in Leah Montenegro with two outs in the top of the seventh to give Corona del Sol what looked like a safe 5-2 lead with the Badgers limited to only three outs to make something happen.

Sofie Trejo singled off the glove of Sheehan at short to give the Badgers life in the bottom of the seventh and then Torres doubled her in to make it 5-3. Ibarra picked up an out but that was followed by a walk issued to Yami Villa to put two runners on. Julissa Lopez singled to load the bases but Ibarra collected her fourth strikeout to make the situation even more tense for the Badger fans. Cheyanne Ortiz delivered on shot to the outfield to score Torres and Villa and the game was tied at 5-5.

With Lopez at second and Ortiz at first, Lesley was intentionally walked after starting her at bat with two balls. The bases were now loaded for Jaelyn Cota and the senior connected on a 2-2 pitch with two outs to right field to score Lopez and the Badgers completed the comeback on the 6-5 victory.

Ortiz went 2-4 with two RBI, Nunez went 2-4 with an RBI, Cota went 2-4 with an RBI and Torres went 2-3 with two RBI. Gant went five innings with nine strikeouts and Torres went the final two innings with five more strikeouts. Ibarra went the distance for Corona del Sol and she had four strikeouts.