LEXINGTON — With the game on the line, Bucyrus third baseman Jade Torres said she wasn’t nervous at all.

“I was thinking ‘this is it.’ I gotta go,” Torres said. “I was going to wait for my pitch and do what I do best.”

In the bottom of the seventh, and Bucyrus mired in a 1-1 tie with Margaretta, Torres calmly stepped into the right-handed batter’s box and drove a pitch over the shortstop’s head and into left-center field, driving in Caleigh Rister with the game-winning run, as the Redmen gained a 2-1 win in the semifinal of the Division III district tournament Wednesday.

With the win, the Redmen (18-7) advance to the district final Thursday at 5 p.m. at Lexington High School and will face Galion (19-4) a 2-1 winner over Milan Edison in the second game.

Torres and Rister combined to score both Bucyrus runs in the game. In the first, Rister singled and moved to second on a Margaretta error and scored on a Torres single down the right-field line.

“I just think we were doing what we usually do, just being ourselves at the plate,” Torres said of herself and Rister.

Rister was also dominant in the circle for the Redmen. The talented sophomore went the distance and scattered five hits. Three of those hits came in the sixth when Margaretta scored their only run on a Taylor Pemberton single.

She struck out 10 in the game and walked one.

“Caleigh pitched great,” Bucyrus coach Pudge Hargis said. “I mean, she’s great. I don’t know how we’re going to go back-to-back, but Caleigh controls the strike zone. And she controls speed a little bit.”

Rister slightly injured a finger on her throwing hand diving back into third base in the third inning. She shook her hand for most of the rest of the game, but still performed very well.

“It’s okay,” Hargis said of Rister’s finger. “I think she bent it back a little bit but there was no scrape, no lost skin or anything like that. The third base coach got her into a little bit of trouble, but she got out of it.”

Rister said that she had some difficulty gripping the ball, but she was okay.

“My fingers are a little sore,” Rister said. “I jammed them diving back into third. I’ll be ready (Thursday).

“I was trying to hold on to the ball like times 3,000 to get it across the plate. You have to work with what you got.”

Rister said that she pitches with a lot of confidence.’

“I had (catcher) Lauren (Kohler) behind me and I had eight defenders behind me,” Rister said. “And I just knew I had confidence and know what I can do. And I knew Lauren was going to catch everything. She has only been catching this year, actually since this winter, not even the entire year, and we had some plays out there that, even if we didn’t catch it right away, we had the backup and we made the plays we had to make.”

Jayden Moore permitted seven hits for Margaretta, allowing just two runs.

“We’re a good team,” Hargis said. “They’re a good team. We didn’t make too many mistakes. And, the pitchers. You know, two years ago, we were 6-16. And I wasn’t very happy. This year, we’re (18-7) and everyone thinks I’m a genius. And I haven’t changed one thing.

“The girls just get in here and they work, and they do a good job.”

Rister, Torres and first baseman Ashley Davis each had a pair of hits for the Redmen.

Hargis said, that while his team hit the ball well, they did a poor job moving runners.

“I wish we could have bunted anytime,” Hargis said. “We tried but we could not get a bunt down. We were awful. We can hit the ball, we’re pretty good at hitting the ball. But when we need to move runners, we weren’t very good today.”

Rister said that her team is ready to face Galion with a district title on the line.

“I had girls behind me,” Rister said. “Alexis (Dye) laid down an amazing bunt to move me to third and then Jade knocked one right over shortstop and got me in and that feeling is incredible. I know it’s been a while since we made it this far.

“But we didn’t come this far to only get this far. We’re making a run.”

Box score

Margaretta   000 001 0      1    5    2

Bucyrus         100 000 1      2    7    3

WP: Caleigh Rister (10 SO, 1 W)

LP: Jayden Moore (4 SO, 5 W)

HR: None.

Triples: None.

Doubles: (M) Rochelle Kuns.

Multiple hits: (M) Logan Bush; (B) Caleigh Rister, Jade Torres, Ashley Davis.

Records: Margaretta 19-5; Bucyrus 18-7.

Next: Bucyrus vs. Galion, Division III district final at Lexington, Thursday.