The old baseball adage is that you play for a tie on the road and play to win if you’re the home team. It looked like Liberty was going to have to be content to have tied Emmaus again in the 11th inning, just as they had done in the 10th.

Instead, fate or the Baseball Gods or something intervened and a fly ball that should have been the third out of the inning went untouched and was followed by a hard-hit ball that found open spaces in the Emmaus outfield leading to the winning run in a 4-3 contest.

Down 3-2, Liberty had a man on first and two outs when Jared Burcin lifted a high pop-up to shallow left field. As two Emmaus defenders converged on the foreseen landing spot, neither could make the play. Kyle Hlavaty, the runner on first, was the most alert player on the field at the time and didn’t make any assumptions about the ball being caught, rounding the bases. When it dropped in, Hlavaty scored easily to tie the game and leave Liberty with a runner on second and a second life. Or was it third? Or fourth?

Elias Gross, who admitted that he thought the game might be over when Burcin hit the high pop, came to the plate and calmly stroked a hit to the right-center field gap to give Liberty a 4-3 walk-off win and a spot in the District 11 Championship game on Thursday.

“Our guys just kept fighting and somebody was looking down upon us today, because basically, we got lucky,” said Liberty coach Andy Pitsilos.

Liberty had taken an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first against Emmaus ace Matt Lanzone, when Sam Kraihanzel singled to drive in Hlavaty, who walked and stole second to leadoff the inning. The Hornets tied the game in the fourth off starter Alex Super when Austin Robertson doubled to drive in Todd Moxey, who led off the single with an infield single.

Tied 1-1, Super was lifted in the sixth inning and Lanzone exited an inning later, thanks to the new PIAA rule limiting pitchers to 100 pitches in a game. The battle of the bullpens was underway, with Liberty’s Alex Laudenslager keeping Emmaus off the board until the 10th inning when Moxey delivered the third of three two-out singles to make it 2-1.

Liberty simply went to work against reliever Adam LeMaster in the bottom of the inning, again taking advantage of a leadoff walk and a stolen base, this time from Burcin. Two outs later, Mike Perreault doubled to again tie the game, and a walk and stolen base put runners on second and third, but LeMaster worked out of the jam.

In the 11th, Emmaus went back to their formula for success with a leadoff single from Robertson, who was bunted to second by Jake Hahn. Back-to-back singles from Zach Schrader and Evan Marushak made it 3-2 Emmaus before Laudenslager got the final two outs of the inning.

Todd Moxey relieved LeMaster in the 11th and got the first two outs of the inning, but couldn’t kill Liberty’s fight to win. Hlavaty drew a two-out walk leading to the heroics from Burcin and Gross that send Liberty to the championship game on Thursday, where they’ll play the winner of the Parkland and Pocono Mountain East game, which was supposed to be played following Liberty’s game, but was pushed back because of the threat of darkness.

The semis are played at Lehigh University’s Legacy Field, which doesn’t have lighting.

“These kids have a lot of character and they didn’t quit,” said Pitsilos. “We got a little bounce our way, and we took advantage of it and made the most of it.”