SCRANTON — Mia Tallo stood in the pitcher’s circle, uniform caked in dirt.

Maybe it symbolized the battles the West Scranton senior catcher has had on the softball diamond in her four years at the school. Perhaps, it was from the postgame slide into second base after the Lady Invaders’ 10-4 win over Hazleton Area in the District 2-4 Class 6A subregional softball semifinal Thursday afternoon.

Yet, the moment didn’t hit her until she was asked about her final swing at the West Scranton softball field; a facility she’s called home for the last four years.

If it was her last swing there, she sure made it memorable.

Tallo ripped a bases-clearing double as part of West Scranton’s six-run sixth inning as the Lady Invaders advanced into the District 2-4 Class 6A subregional championship next week.

Sophomore Kaleiah Connor was sensational in the circle, holding a powerful Hazleton Area lineup to just six hits with five strikeouts.

“I didn’t know if she was going to catch it before it hit the wall, but it felt good,” Tallo said. “That’s the best feeling in the world. It really didn’t hit me until the end that this is my last game on this field. It’s a special feeling to end my final game on this field with a hit. It’s amazing.”

West Scranton (12-9), the No. 2 seed, will take on District 4 representative and top seed Williamsport in Wednesday’s championship. The Millionaires were a 10-0, six-inning winner over Wilkes-Barre Area in the other semifinal. For the Lady Invaders, it’s the first time they’ve reached the championship since 2022 when they were in Class 5A.

It’s a rematch of last year’s semifinal, which Williamsport won, 5-1, up on Millionaire Mountain.

“They are a great team, but we just have to keep our momentum going and our confidence up,” Connor said. “We just have to play the game that we know how to play.”

John Connor had some uneasy moments heading into Thursday’s semifinal.

Sure, his Lady Invaders already had a 13-3, six-inning win over the Cougars in their back pocket from back in March. But that was two months ago.

Watching Hazleton progress throughout the season, he knew it would be a different game. When the Cougars jumped out to a 2-0 lead after Hannah Matyas’ two-run single in the fourth, he was about to find out how his squad would respond.

“The biggest thing is keeping the girls focused on this game, and not the last time we played them,” the West Scranton coach said. “We’ve been following them, and they’ve gotten better every game that they played. I knew it was going to be a battle.”

What the first-year coach saw was that old-school West-Side grit and toughness break through at the plate, and his pitcher really digging her shoes in the ground.

West immediately responded with RBIs from Brianna Connor and Kaleiah Connor, and it was Allie Stanko who put the Lady Invaders up for good as her two-run single scored Sydney Williams and Brianna Connor.

From there, it was all about the young sophomore in the circle.

She allowed an opposite-field home run to Saige Klesh, and one run in the seventh on Kayla Wysocky’s single, but was lights out in the final three innings, retiring seven of the last nine batters she saw.

“This was such a team effort. I am so proud of this team. We had great hits, and made awesome plays in the field. Bella (Lutz) at second, she made some great plays,” Kaleiah Connor said. “Honestly, I wasn’t nervous coming into this one because I’ve been here before. I was just telling myself that it was another game, and I wanted to focus on just doing what I know how to do. I wanted to do my best.”

West held a one-run lead heading into the bottom of the sixth, looking for any kind of insurance. With one out remaining after Hazleton Area’s Isabella Almeida retired the first two batters, the Lady Invaders caught lightning in a bottle.

Kaleiah Connor, Julia Farkaly and Stanko all drew walks to load the bases for Tallo, who hit the ball hard in her previous three plate appearances, but right to Lady Cougar fielders.

The only person who was catching her final swing was Spider-Man because Tallo hit the bases-clearing double off the fence in left field as West Scranton led, 7-3. They added three more on consecutive RBI pokes by Sophia Deluca, McKenna Brudnicki and Williams.

“That inning is huge. If we don’t get any runs there, we are coming out with some nerves in that seventh inning,” Tallo said. “You have to assume they are going to score because they are a good team that’s going to put up a fight. That inning, we needed to put up a crooked number, and to put together a two-run rally, it worked out so well. Everyone was hitting, and everyone was doing their job.”

After being handcuffed by Wallenpaupack freshman Anna Babyak in their regular-season finale, West Scranton finished with 13 hits — three each from Deluca and Williams — as eight of the nine starters recorded at least one hit.

Klesh and Rylee Sachs combined for four of the Lady Cougars’ six hits.

“I talked to the girls after they came in the dugout after giving up two runs, and I told them that they punched us, and we had to go out and punch right back,” John Connor said. “And they did and answered. These are the things you work on all year long, and it was good to see them come to fruition today.”