GOLD BEACH — Comebacks like this usually only happen in the movies.

Trailing 8-0 to Harrisburg heading into the seventh inning, the Gold Beach softball squad sent 15 batters to the plate and reeled off nine runs to manufacture an incredible come-from-behind Class 3A state playoff victory Tuesday.  

Junior pitcher Molly Hockema completed the comeback by driving in the winning run in the 9-8 victory. The winner came on the first pitch of the at-bat, as Hockema sent the ball careening past second base and brought teammate Kayla Zuber home.

“I thought I wasn’t going to swing on that pitch, but I did,” said an elated Hockema. “This feels so good. It’s amazing!”

As Zuber crossed home there was a brief pause, as the gathered crowd — including some spectators who’d come on to the decks of nearby houses to see what the commotion was about — seemed to convince itself of what had just happened. Then, the fans went nuts, the Panther dugout emptied and the hugs and tears began.

“This was so crazy,” said senior Kelsey Hamilton, who had a single, a run scored and was walked during the improbable seventh-inning tear. “We were still trying to be positive, but it was hard because we were down 8-0. I was so happy the team played through it, especially because I’m a senior and this is my last season. It shows we can work hard and do what we want to do.”

The elated finish was a 180-degree change from the rest of the game.

Things took a turn for the worse for the Panthers in the second inning when Harrisburg scored a pair of runs on an error. The game really got ugly late though, as the Eagles racked up six runs through the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. After a 3-run sixth, it looked like the game would end as a road blowout for Harrisburg.

Eagle pitcher Erica Traw was tough on the mound for six innings, frustrating the Panthers with timely strikeouts — she finished with seven total while pitching a complete game.

But all that changed in the seventh.

Gold Beach’s Emmie Yeiter started things off in the final inning with a double to right field. She later advanced to third on a wild pitch, and came home on a Harrisburg error to make the game 8-1.

Meanwhile, both Zuber and Katie Walling walked, and Hamilton singled to move Zuber to third, but Walling was thrown out at second. Hockema then drove a dribbling ball between second and third to bring Zuber home for what would be the first of two times in the inning, and the score was 8-2.

Kourtney Moore then calmly stepped to the plate, nailing a single to load the bases. Miranda Hunnicutt was walked, and Hamilton jogged home, making the count 8-3 with the bases still loaded.

Katherine Zuber plopped an RBI single right over the top of second base, and the game was 8-4 as Hockema crossed home plate.

After Tana Miller struck out, Yeiter stepped up and drove yet another RBI single to the right of second base. With the score now 8-5 and the bases still loaded, rumblings began in the home crowd that this thing might actually happen.

As Katherine Zuber smacked another RBI single to the right of second base to make the score 8-6 on Moore’s run scored, Walling stepped up to the plate for the second time in the inning.

She hit a dribbler past second, Hunnicutt crossed home plate and the Panthers were within one. Then things got crazy. A Harrisburg outfielder bobbled the ball, and Yeiter crossed third and just kept coming. She slid in to home a split second ahead of the throw, sneaking past Lisa Bowers to tie the ball game.

As the ecstatic crowd cheered, a shell-shocked Traw walked Hamilton to load up the bases again, but it didn’t matter — Hockema’s game-winner came on the next pitch.

Final Score: Gold Beach 9, Harrisburg 8.

The victory-clinching RBI completed a roller-coaster ride of a game for Hockema, as the Gold Beach ace was benched in the sixth after giving up the seventh run of the game to Harrisburg on a wild pitch.

Yeiter took over then, allowing one more run before getting out of the inning.  She gave up one base hit in the seventh before the inning ended with a strikeout and a double play.

“I was just thinking, ‘I gotta come in and pitch the way I always do,’” said Yeiter, who added that her senior experience helped keep her calm. “There weren’t as many nerves.”

“Emmie stayed pumped up and did great,” said Hockema of Yeiter’s performance on the mound.

But although Hockema struggled to find the strike zone, particularly early in the game, her pitching wasn’t the sole cause of the eight runs the Panthers spotted the Eagles by the seventh.

Gold Beach had five errors in the game, all of them coming at crucial times. All around, the Panthers’ defense was shaky. As the ball club now advances to play Willamina at home in the second round of the state playoffs on Friday, coach Jerry Ross said the players just can’t make so many mistakes if they hope to go on. Seventh-inning, nine-run comebacks are few and far between, after all.

“Nice comeback,” he told the players immediately after the game. “But we can’t do this every time.”

Ross added later that he plans to hammer home the importance of defense over the next couple of days.

“We’ve got to improve our defense a ton in the next two days. We can’t play that way against Willamina,” he said.

But regardless, after the game Ross was quick to praise his team’s gutsy performance.

“That was incredible,” said Ross. “They just didn’t give up.”