Pittsburg softball punched its ticket to the Class 5A state tournament in dramatic fashion Tuesday night with a 6-4 win over No. 6 seed St. James Academy during their 5A East regional championship.

Purple Dragon freshman Brecken Campbell delivered a walk-off two-run home in the bottom of the seventh only two innings after her first two-run homer gave the Dragons a tie score entering the sixth.

"We've talked about it all year and this is what I just told the girls," Pittsburg softball coach Chanc Gomez said. "We keep preaching all year long — dogfight, grit, stay after it, don't ever let down and if you watch there, we had some innings there that kind of got us but we never stopped and we never got down on each other, never argued and we weren't fighting and mad at each other. We stayed up, we came in, we talked and we went right back out there.

"Playing St. James Academy, 5A private school out of Kansas City, we knew with them coming in that they could swing it and we just had to play. That kind of showed."

Campbell finished the contest with two runs scored, two hits and four RBI. Bottom of the order and Campbell's fellow freshman Micah Gomez hit two singles preceding both Campbell homers.

Breck Slaughter's RBI double in the first opened the scoring and she earned the win in the circle with four runs allowed (all earned) on five hits and four strikeouts and no walks over seven innings. She did hit four St. James batters with pitches.

"BC Campbell, a freshman, with two bombs today, hit her sixth and seventh home runs," Coach Gomez said. "We had some great at-bats leading off. Micah led off the inning there as a freshman getting on to start the rally. You can't ask for much more. Breck Slaughter coming out and throwing in the weather that we're in. Crappy weather, the worst for a pitcher and to come out and compete, she hit some batters and she came out and had to fight and she kept it up.

"That's all by our leadership. Our seniors, Peyton Morey, Brette Pasteur, Breck Slaughter and Emily Shriver. Those four have kept this culture going."

Kenleigh Warford's single rounded out the Dragons' six hits against St. James starter Kayleigh Ubben. Pasteur worked a pair of walks and scored Pittsburg's first run. Laney Trisler drove in a run.

St. James took a 2-1 lead on Ainsley Palmer's two-run single in the second. Gracie Brown's double in the third made it 3-1 and Reagan Cullinane scored the Thunder's final run after leading off the fifth with a triple.

The Dragons improved to 22-4 with the win and became one of the eight state qualifiers for the second year in a row. East top seed Basehor-Linwood (25-2), East No. 4 Spring Hill (23-5) and West No. 14 Eisenhower (13-13) join Pittsburg as the first four qualifiers and the other four should be determined on Wednesday.

The Dragons finished in fourth place last season during Coach Gomez's first season as head coach.

"It's dumb how they're doing it," Coach Gomez said. "It's at a neutral site first round, but who cares? You know, let's go play the damn game somewhere and we'll go beat somebody.

"We were just talking about it. They picked four sites and we're not sure yet. There was an upset to Salina Central (West No. 3 seed). They got beat, which possibly puts us in the four seed. We're sitting pretty good. It will be a dogfight."

Pittsburg 24,

KC Washington 0

Breck Slaughter's inside-the-park grand slam highlighted a 17-run first inning Tuesday against No. 14 Kansas City Washington and the Dragons scored seven more runs in the second to end the semifinal game in three innings.

Slaughter led the Dragons at the plate with three hits and six RBI. The Dragons worked 18 walks and scored 21 earned runs in two innings against Washington pitcher Makayla Manning.

AnnaLynn Hudson and Olivia Bruce split pitching duties for the Dragons and combined for an abbreviated perfect game. Hudson and Bruce each struck out three with Hudson working two innings and Bruce the third.

St. James 021 010 0 — 4 5 0

Pittsburg 100 120 2 — 6 6 0

Kayleigh Ubben and Maggie Orth; Breck Slaughter and Peyton Morey. W: Slaughter. L: Ubben. 2B—SJA: Gracie Brown; PHS: Slaughter. 3B—SJA: Reagan Cullinane. HR—PHS: Brecken Campbell 2.

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Washington 000 — 0 0 3

Pittsburg (17)7x — 24 8 0

Makayla Manning and Nadia Mondragon; Breck Slaughter and Peyton Morey. W: Slaughter. L: Manning. 2B—PHS: Brecken Campbell, Brilee Mantooth. HR—PHS: Slaughter.

This sports reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/fund/support-local-journalism-project-fund/