Confidence was the key word for Liberty’s Elijah Heimbach.

He needed it if he wanted to make his first trip to Hershey and got enough of it at the Northeast Regional 3A tournament to continue his season another week.

Heimbach took fifth at 114 over the weekend, locking up the final spot to the PIAA championships this week in Hershey with a 9-5 victory over Dakota Sandy of Abington Heights in the fifth place bout.

“I knew that if I could get to the semifinals, I’d be way more confident about getting to states,” said Heimbach. “My mindset coming into the tournament was great, because I knew I could wrestle with these guys.”

Heimbach did reach the regional semifinals, but ran into Northampton buzzsaw Brayden Wenrich, who scored a 14-2 major decision over Heimbach enroute to winning the gold medal.

Heimbach stumbled again in the consolation round with a 4-0 loss to Notre Dame’s Cael Muller before stopping the bleeding with the win over Sandy.

Now, he’ll get the opportunity to step onto the Giant Center floor for the first time in his career when the PIAA tournament gets underway Thursday afternoon.

“I was going into matches thinking I was going to lose because of how my postseason went a year ago,” said Heimbach, who didn’t qualify for regionals last year. “It’s all about surviving and advancing. There’s a fire inside me and feels great to be one of those guys in Hershey.”