Correspondent photo / Lowell Spencer. West Branch’s Baylee Waugman attempts to lay down a bunt Tuesday evening against Kenston during their 1st round playoff matchup.

BELOIT — The West Branch Warriors softball team has long enjoyed a successful program. As recently as two years ago they made an appearance in the Regional Finals. Despite some regular season inconsistencies this year, the Warriors still have high hopes to make a long tournament run.

The youthful 13-seeded Warriors took the first step in their quest on Tuesday with a 7-2 victory over the 18-seeded Kenston Bombers to advance to the sectional finals Thursday night.

They will travel to Ashtabula to face the Edgewood Warriors.

The Warriors only have one senior starter in shortstop Baylee Waugaman. The remainder of the starting lineup consisted of two juniors, five sophomores, and one freshman in the contest.

“We are slowly getting better,” Warriors coach Sis Woods remarked. “It has just been a lack of varsity experience at the begging of this season. But we are coming along. We are cutting down on errors. We only made one tonight.”

The victory improves the Warriors to 10-9 overall on the season, 3-3 in the EBC with one more league game this Friday when they host league-leading Marlington.

Sophomore Klary McKay pitched a complete game five-hitter to earn the victory in the circle for the Warriors as she struck out 8 batters and didn’t surrender a walk in the contest.

“She moves the ball around really well,” Bomber’s coach Annie Kowitz said. “She has a nice change-up, so I think after the first time through the lineup we started waiting for the change-up a little bit more. But she moved it inside, outside, up and down and she was hitting those corners. If you hit the corners, you’re going to win a lot of games.”

The Warriors grabbed an early 2-0 lead after pushing single runs across the plate in the first and second innings courtesy of an RBI triple by Addi Craven in the opening frame and a clutch two-out single by Libbie Davis in the second. Davis put the game away in the fourth when she delivered another key two-out, two RBI single to push the Warriors out to a commanding 5-0 lead.

“We hit top to bottom today,” Woods added. “We got a couple of key hits like when Mikalyn Flits and Baylee Waugaman came through with two outs which are big.”

The Warriors added two more runs in the fifth inning when Fitts drove in Sara Schmidt who led off the frame with a walk. Then Waugaman drove Fitts home with a triple to the right field wall. The Bombers answered with two runs in the sixth following a lead-off single, an error by the Warriors, then the Bomber’s Devan McCabe lined a single to center to drive in both runners.

However, it was a key defensive play in the third that may have proved to be the difference in the game.

With the Warriors leading 2-0, the Bombers’ Madison Schmoldt led off the inning with a single. Then the following batter hit a one-hopper to the Warriors shortstop Waugaman, who fired to first. Schmoldt tried to race to third, but Fitts fired across the infield to double off Schmoldt at third, killing the Bombers’ threat and crushing any momentum they were gathering.

“If we don’t convert there and they score, it’s a 2-1 game. That was huge for us,” Wood stated. “It killed their momentum.”