Emily Glen’s excited and emotionally-drained teammates raced out to the dirt between second and third base to congratulate the Cary-Grove junior following her heroic, walk-off hit during a thrilling 5-4 win in nine innings over Harvard on Tuesday.

The fourth-seeded Trojans’ season was on the line multiple times against the fifth-seeded Hornets, but they kept finding a way in the teams’ Class 3A Prairie Ridge Regional softball semifinal in Crystal Lake.

Nerves were high.

“A little bit of anxiety,” said Glen, who had hits in her last two at-bats against Harvard ace Leona Eichholz, the final one an RBI single into right field in the bottom of the ninth to score Olivia Osadzinski and send C-G into Friday’s 4:30 p.m. final against top-seeded Prairie Ridge.

“I was just trying to move my teammates around, that’s all. I wasn’t thinking anything big.”

The Trojans (10-21), like Glen, came up big time and time again, matching the Hornets (8-15), who themselves kept finding late-hitting magic. Harvard’s Kristi Knop (2 for 4) had a two-out RBI base hit to score Grace Nellessen (1 for 4, double) in the top of the seventh to go up 3-2, while Kendra Cunningham (1 for 4) had a two-out RBI double to score Kara Knop (one RBI) in eighth to go up 4-3.

Osadzinski answered and delivered a two-out RBI hit for the Trojans in the seventh to tie the score at 3, and Holly Streit tallied an RBI hit in the eighth to tie the score at 4.

After C-G starting pitcher Addy Green held Harvard scoreless in the ninth, Osadzinski started the bottom half with a hit, took second on a wild pitch and came around to score on Glen’s line-drive single into right field – coming off the second pitch from Harvard sophomore pitcher Leona Eichholz.

“I was very nervous,” Osadzinski (2 for 5) said of her seventh-inning at-bat that sent the game into extras. “I was taking deep breaths.”

Glen has become one of the team’s most dependable players, whether she’s batting in the No. 4 spot, as she has at times this season, or No. 8, like she was Tuesday.

“Stepping into the upperclassman role, she’s just done incredible,” C-G coach Car Neff said. “She really shines when we need her to. She makes sure her job gets done, which is one of my favorite things about Emily.”

Cary-Grove, held scoreless by Eichholz through five innings and trailing 2-0, scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth. Glen and Lyla Murray (4 for 5, double) each had two-out RBI hits to tie the score.

Harvard made two errors in the inning and committed seven in the game.

Eichholz didn’t make things easy on C-G.

“I’ve got to give it to the Harvard pitcher,” Neff said about Eichholz, who struck out 17, allowing two earned runs on 12 hits and two walks in 8⅓ innings. “She’s really good at hitting the corners, and early on we just watched them. But they adjusted, and I am so proud.

“There were so many times we had two outs and were one out away – and they pushed through, put that ball in play and forced them to make mistakes.”

Eichholz, a hard-throwing sophomore who missed almost a month because of an arm injury, returned last week. The team was also without its No. 2 starter, Kara Knop, so the Hornets had to call up and use JV pitchers for the last 3½ weeks.

“It was hard on her,” Harvard coach Becky Edinger said of Eichholz, who had two doubles Tuesday. “She was really wanting to get back in there. ... She’s a great student of the game, and she can slow the game down for herself. She’s only a sophomore, and she’s already come a long way.”

Eichholz, who last year as a freshman tallied a 1.39 ERA with 154 strikeouts in 80⅔ innings, was still confident in a game that had plenty of late drama.

“It was definitely nerve-racking, but I trusted everyone,” Eichholz said. “There was a lot going on, and I’m proud of my team for how they handled the situation. Not the outcome we wanted, but now we have a little fire for next year.”

Green, a left-handed senior, allowed two earned runs in nine innings for C-G, scattering eight hits with 10 strikeouts and three walks. Addison DeSomer, another senior, scored twice and almost hit a home run in the seventh inning but had to settle for a double off the top of the center-field fence.

Despite Tuesday’s loss, Knop, one of Harvard’s four seniors and a four-year varsity player, had a memorable final high school game.

“It was hard possibly being my last game, a lot was on the line,” Knop said. “It was a lot of heartbeat moments.”