Beatrice, Crete, Fairbury, Freeman, Norris all qualify for softball district final

BEATRICE, NE - Five southeast Nebraska softball teams will compete for a chance in the state tournament later this week.

Beatrice, Crete, Fairbury, Freeman and Norris all qualified for a district final via a subdistrict win or through wild card points. District finals are best-of-three series.

District Finals Pairings

Full List

Sudistrict Recap

Two-seed Beatrice handled three-seed Norris 6-2 but lost in the final to top seed Wahoo 7-4. But because of the Lady O's strong regular season they will still host a district final series on Friday.

The Crete Cardinals went up to Wayne as the third seed out of four teams and came away as the upset winners. The Cards held off two-seed Seward 7-6 and rallied to walk-off top-seed Wayne 6-5. Mack Steuer recorded the walk-off hit against Wayne and earned the win in both games. It was deja vu for Crete, they upset Wayne on the road is subdistrict play last year, too.

Two-seed Freeman smacked Southern/Diller-Odell 8-0 but fell to top-seed Bishop Neumann 10-2. The Falcons still advance to a district final on wild card points.

Wilber-Clatonia and Milford both lost in the first round of the subdistrict hosted by Malcolm.

Three-seed Fillmore Central/Exeter-Milligan/Friend beat two-seed Twin River 11-3 but lost 15-9 to four-seed Polk County. The Panthers season is done.

Fairbury was the two-seed in the subdistrict played in Leigh. The Lady Jeffs were down 6-2 to Pierce in game one but rallied for a 15-7 win... but the bats ran out of gas in the final against top seed Highway 91. Fairbury dropped it 4-1.