With the season on the line, the West Lauderdale Lady Knights survived a seventh-inning scare from Caledonia in their regular-season finale Friday and earned a spot in the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 4A fast-pitch softball playoffs.

The Lady Knights — in what was essentially a play-in game for the postseason — stopped the bleeding just in time and clinched the fourth and final seed in Division 4-4A with a 3-2 victory. Had Caledonia won, the Lady Feds would have earned the ticket to the postseason.

“I am proud of these girls,” said WL coach Jonathan Wells. “I’m pleased with this win and the last few games, which helped set the tone for us to come out here tonight.

“I’ve seen our girls play with more grit these last couple of games. I think this is a great time to start peaking.”

The Lady Knights were leading by three runs going into the top of the final inning with the top of Caledonia’s batting order coming to the plate.

Stephanie Kinard, who started the game and left briefly with back spasms, hit Justine Jenkins to open the inning. Then with one out, Kinard walked Shaina Cruse before recording the second out.

Ashley Langford singled to shallow left, which scored Jenkins and moved Cruse to second. During Hannah Blair’s at-bat, a wild pitch from Kinard caromed off the backstop and wound up in the West Lauderdale dugout. After advancing one base each on the errant throw, both runners were awarded an extra base, sending Cruse home. Blair grounded out to shortstop to end the threat with the potential game-tying run on third base.

“It was a bit scary,” Wells said. “I’ve been trying to tell these girls that they have to stay physically and mentally focused and that showed in the seventh. Stephanie was hurting, but she wanted to come back in and finish the game.”

Kinard earned the win, allowing only three hits.

West Lauderdale scored in each of the first three innings, but failed to add any insurance runs down the stretch.

Julie Jones led off the game with a slap bunt down the third base line and moved to second when Nandi Franklin popped out to the catcher. On the play, the throw from Cruse to second base went into the outfield and Jones picked up two more bases and put the Lady Knights up 1-0.

In the second, Tambria Davis singled and stole second before being driven in on a two-out RBI single to left by CeCe Lawn, who stayed alive at the plate by fouling off four-straight pitches after falling behind 0-2.

Franklin opened the third inning with an inside-the-park home run that rolled to the fence in right-center field. Emily Pogue followed with a triple, but the Lady Knights struck out in the next two at-bats and grounded out to the pitcher to end the frame with Pogue stranded on third.

Pogue was the only Lady Knight with multiple hits as she added a double in the fifth inning.

West Lauderdale faces Cleveland in the opening round of the playoffs. At press time, the best-of-three series was tentatively set for 1 p.m. today, although school officials were looking to postpone the series until Monday due to conflicting school activities.