PETAL – It took nearly five hours, but the St. Martin Lady Yellowjackets swept Game 2 and 3 from Petal Thursday to advance in the 6A playoffs. St. Martin took Game 1 5-1, then won a nine-inning thriller 20-18. The Lady Panthers needed to win one game to move to the third round, but couldn’t keep up with St. Martin in the end. “The kids battled,” Petal head coach Jonathan Robertson said. “If you didn’t enjoy the atmosphere tonight, there’s something wrong with you. You can’t take anything away from their kids. They battled and our kids battled.” As Petal led 13-9 in the top of the seventh, St. Martin scored three quick runs before an out was recorded. With one out and a runner at third base, Megan Beaugez singled to plate the fourth run and it tied the game at 13. The Lady Panthers would go down 1-2-3 in the bottom half of the frame, a feat that was rare in both games from either team. In the top of the eighth inning, the Lady Jackets looked like they put the final touch on the comeback win with three runs to grab a 16-13 advantage. However, Jamie Powell scored the first run after two passed balls from St. Martin, as she started at second base due to the international tiebreaker rule used in high school softball. Then, Jordan Cobb and Haleigh Rainey each walked, and Bree Lowery sacrificed them over to second and third base. After the second out, Maddie Stuart smoked a pitch up the middle to the wall for the 2-RBI triple. Standing as the game-winning run at third, she was left stranded, which was a theme for both teams. “That’s going to happen when you have as many hits,” Robertson said. St. Martin answered with four runs in the top of the ninth, but all Petal could do was get a two-run home run from Cobb to cut the deficit to the game’s final, 20-18. “We got to the international tiebreaker and we’re down two,” Robertson said. “We get down to our last out and get a nice base hit up the middle by Maddie Stuart. Then they go back up four in the ninth. We hit a two-run shot to get within striking distance. Just a heck of a game. “I hate it for our kids, hate it for our seniors. It doesn’t feel good, but you can’t go home with your head low after competing like that.” St. Martin’s Kamryn Carcich couldn’t be stopped in Game 3, as she went 5-for-6 with three doubles and two triples with seven RBI. She smacked a double in the ninth inning to right center while the bases were load, and it scored all three runs to give the Lady Yellowjackets the 20-16 lead. Petal was led by Rainey’s 3-for-4 performance with three runs scored, two RBI and a walk, and Stuart added a 2-for-3 night with two runs, two RBI and a walk. In the first game of the afternoon, the Lady Yellowjackets used five hits and five Petal errors to score the five runs. St. Martin scored one run in each of the first two innings, then two more in the sixth and another run in the seventh padded the lead, as four the five runs came with two outs. The Lady Panthers left nine runners on the base in the contest, leaving three stranded through the first two innings. In fact, at least one runner was left on base in each frame, including a bases loaded situation in the bottom of the sixth inning. Lowery led the Petal offense with two hits and Leah Hernandez, Hannah Brewer, Powell, Cobb, Rainey and Stuart all collected hits in the game, as Petal out-hit St. Martin 8-5.