ABOVE: Martin County West's Rowan Faber celebrates with her team after hitting a home run in a Section 2A Softball Tournament game against New Ulm Cathedral Tuesday at Caswell Park in North Mankato. Photo by Ari Selvey.

NORTH MANKATO — One swing of the bat is all it took for third-seeded Martin County West to defeat second-seeded New Ulm Cathedral Tuesday in the Section 2A Softball Tournament elimination bracket finals, as a solo home run from Rowan Faber led the Mavericks to a 1-0 win.

“I was just going for a base hit,” Faber said. “You don’t think in the moment that you’re going to hit a home run. But then I just hit it off the bat and there it was.”

Faber, an eighth-grader who bats ninth for the Mavericks, hit her homer in the third inning and was one of just two MCW players to earn a hit in the game, with Courtney Anderson being the other with a single in the second.

It was the second time that MCW had defeated Cathedral in the section tournament, the first a 3-0 win in the winners bracket on Saturday. With the win, MCW advances to play United South Central on Thursday, where they will have to win two games against the top-ranked team in the state to make the state tournament for the first time in school history.

Maddie Carlson earned the win for MCW, striking out three and allowing four hits in the complete-game shutout.

The Mavericks played strong defense throughout, keeping the Greyhounds off the bases. When Cathedral did get a runner on, MCW came up clutch with several key plays.

“Definitely our energy,” Anderson said. “We really kept each other up, even if we made mistakes, you’d always tell your teammate, ‘It’s OK, you’ve got the next one, make sure.’ The energy was definitely a big park.”

One such key play was in the sixth inning as Cathedral’s Ava Schmid made it all the way to third base with just one out on the board.

As a grounder was put into play to Anderson at third base, she faked the throw over to first to catch Schmid between bases and the Mavericks were able to chase her down for an out to prevent a run.

“I definitely have to stay out of my head,” Anderson said of keeping her cool in clutch moments. “I have to for sure clear my mind before each pitch and make sure that I know what I’m doing in those situations.”

Anderson said she was planning to fake to first from the start of the play to try to get the lead runner out.

MCW will have to find a way to defeat USC on Thursday, as the Rebels have downed the Mavericks twice this season and won all 22 of their matchups this year.

“We played really good defense today,” Faber said. “So just doing that again will help us a lot.”

Anderson added that continuing to play with energy would be important for the championship game.

“We’re going to have to make our plays and we’re going to have to keep our energy up.”