It was anything but a walk in the park for Mifflinburg despite striking early in Thursday’s District 4 Class AAA semifinal against Hughesville, as it took a late push for the top seed to finally take control and pull out a 9-6 win at Elm Park.

With the teams tied 5-5 in the fifth, starting pitcher Taylor Stewart jump-started the go-ahead rally by ripping a leadoff double to left. She scored on Aubrey Fluman’s single, giving the Wildcats (21-0) a lead they would never relinquish.

“It’s just an indescribable feeling,” Stewart said. “That game didn’t go the way we thought it was going to. They put up a good fight; we knew they were gonna come out hard and we didn’t expect anything less. But it felt good to come through when my team needed it.”

Stewart wasn’t done at the plate. In the sixth, Mifflinburg created separation with a pair of towering swings. Anna Pachucki blasted a one‒out solo homer over the left-field wall, and two batters later, after a Hughesville pitching change, Stewart crushed a ball to nearly the same spot for a two-run shot that stretched the lead to 9-5.

“Just give me something to hit,” Stewart said of her mindset. “I was looking to put the bat on it any way I could.”

The seventh wasn’t without tension. Stewart surrendered a solo home run to open the inning and allowed another runner to reach, but the senior locked back in. After a flyout, she froze Addison Henninger on a called third strike to end it and strand the potential tying run in the on-deck circle.

The win was far from the smooth 10-0, five-inning opener Mifflinburg enjoyed Tuesday against Wellsboro, and Stewart admitted she prefers the grind.

“These are the games I like more. I feel like it brings you together as a team,” she said. “You’ve got to work as a team more.”

Hughesville (15-6) made sure of that. The Spartans scratched across two runs in the second to cut Mifflinburg’s early 3-0 lead to one, then put the Wildcats on their heels in the third. Stewart struggled to put away a patient lineup, issuing three walks to load the bases before falling behind Kiana Peck 3-0. On a 3-1 pitch, Peck turned on a strike and kept it fair down the third-base line, clearing the bases and giving Hughesville a 5-3 advantage.

“In the third inning, I shut down and was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ and I got flustered,” Stewart said. “But then we had a talk and the team came together. It was more of I needed to trust the team in that moment, and the rest of the game, that’s what I did. That’s how we finished the game.”

Mifflinburg answered immediately. Brooke Gessner opened the bottom half with a single, and after a groundout, Avery Reibsome doubled her home. Fluman followed with another double to plate Reibsome and tie the game at 5, setting the stage for the Wildcats’ late-inning surge.

“I give all the credit to my team because without them, I couldn’t have done that,” Stewart said.

Next up for Mifflinburg is the District 4 Class 3A championship on Wednesday back at Elm Park, where the Wildcats will face Warrior Run. The Lady Defenders reached the final by knocking off No. 2 Loyalsock and No. 6 Montoursville.

The teams met once this season, a 1-0 Mifflinburg win on March 26, but Stewart said that result means little now.

“We beat them previously in the season, but that means absolutely nothing now,” she said. “In‒season is completely different than out, but we’re looking for a good game. That’s what we want.”