Cayden Benavidez knew what he needed to do.

He came through in the clutch for Princeton by delivering a game-winning sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh inning for a 9-8 Three Rivers Conference crossover victory over Sherrard on Saturday at Prather Field.

“I knew I had to put the ball in play,” Benavidez said. ”My coach (Patrick Smith) pulled me over during the timeout, and said, ‘If you can put one in the air, it’d be perfect for us.’ And I did that. It felt great to get that winning run in there.“

Benavidez had a big game at the plate for the Tigers, going 3 for 4 with two RBIs.

“I felt good in the pen this morning hitting off the machine and brought it here and it felt great,” he said.

Braden Shaw drew a leadoff walk to start the Tigers’ winning rally and stole second. He scored on Stihl Brokaw’s bloop double to right to tie the game at 8. Brokaw took third on a wild pitch and Sherrard coach Nick Basala elected to intentionally walk Ryan Jagers and Jack Oester to load the bases to give his Tigers a force out at home.

Benavidez spoiled that plan by stroking a line drive to shallow left that Sherrard’s Eli Matson caught head high, but was unable to throw out Brokaw, who slid head first across the plate for the winning run.

“That’s a tough situation. They’ve got a guy at third base with nobody out. So they’re trying to get to a force there and hope he hits into a ground ball,” Smith said. “I called timeout and told (Benavidez) to relax and don’t try to do too much. He did a great job just lifting the ball. That was a great team at-bat.

“(Basala) walked Ryan, who doubled earlier in the game, and walked Jack, who doubled earlier in the game and put some good swings on it. We were just in a great spot in our lineup. Obviously, it’s ideal with the winning run on third base and nobody out. You’re really hoping you come away with that one.”

Princeton (2-4) found itself battling back the whole game.

Sherrard (3-8) struck first with three runs in the top of the first, including a two-run homer by Matson.

Benavidez got one run back with a RBI single to right to score Shaw in the home half of the first.

An unearned run in the top of the fourth stretched Sherrard’s lead to 4-1. Princeton made it 4-3 in the bottom of the fourth when Tyler Forristall beat out an infield hit to plate one run and Noah Morton, the starting pitcher, helped his cause with a RBI knock to right field.

Harrison Curry hit a RBI double, then stole third and scored on a throwing error to push Sherrard’s lead to 7-3 in the fourth.

Princeton strung hits by Shaw and Jagers along with a fielder’s choice RBI by Oester in the bottom of the fourth to make it a 7-4 game.

In the fifth, Jagers cleared the bases with a three-run, two-out triple to left, scoring Morton (who singled to center), Hunter Spiegel (bunt single) and Abe Longeville (walk) to tie the game at 7.

Smith said it was a great way to win what was a delayed home opener after a couple of rainouts.

“Ah man, that was a lot of fun, wasn’t it. What is it, April 11, our home opener? Kind of later in the season than we expected,” Smith said. “I thought we did a great job of battling throughout the game. I told them the score’s going to take care of itself. If we just do what we do and compete throughout the entire game, it’s going to be something to be proud of. And we came away with a win.”

Jagers (3 RBIs), Morton and Spiegel all had two hits for Princeton. Shaw picked up the win in relief of Morton, scattering four hits and six walks over 3 2/3 innings.

Brylan Bender, who came on in relief in the seventh for Sherrard, took the loss. Curry went 3 for 5 batting leadoff for Sherrard.

*Note: Sherrard won the JV game 16-4. Logan Walter had two hits and Paxton Knudsen had a double and three RBIs for PHS.