No stranger to big moments, Crystal Lake South junior Carson Trivellini put his hand on the shoulder of Ryan Morgan by the on-deck circle, leaned in and gave his teammate some advice.

The sophomore Martin was about to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning of Saturday’s Class 3A Vernon Hills Regional final, with South trailing upset-minded Carmel by a run.

“I told him, ‘Just do you. Don’t overthink it. If you have to wear one, you wear one. Get on top of the plate and take it that way [hit by pitch] if you have to,’ ” Trivellini said.

Sure enough, Martin took a pitch from Carmel lefty starter Josh Ouimette that bounced and clipped him. Trivellini followed by ripping a double to right field, and Nolan Dabrowski played hero, lining an opposite-field single down the line in left field to score pinch runner Liam Kaminsky and Trivellini, giving the top-seeded Gators a dramatic, 4-3 win.

“It was electric,” said Dabrowski, a senior second baseman. “Just absolute unwavering faith in this team and just everything that we’ve done this year. Never had a doubt that we would get it done. You just got to stay with it the whole game.”

It was the fifth regional championship in a row for the Gators (26-9), who will held up five fingers while posing for a photo with the championship plaque. South will play Deerfield (15-22) at 2 p.m. Wednesday in a semifinal of the Grayslake Central Sectional.

No. 10 Carmel (15-22) led 3-1 after scoring three runs in the fourth thanks to two-out hits from No. 9 hitter Noah Ulbrich (two-run double) and Ouimette (RBI single). The Corsairs then knocked out NIU-bound left-hander Devin De Loach with one out and two on in the fifth.

“I’m proud of the team for keeping our heads up and believing in each other and playing as a group,” Gators coach Brian Bogda said.

Tanner Maurer relieved De Loach (83 pitches, seven hits, six strikeouts) and worked out of the fifth-inning jam by getting back-to-back outs to keep South within two.

Nick Stowasser, whose two-out single scored Trivellini to open the scoring in the first, lifted a sacrifice fly in the Gators’ fifth to make it a 3-2 game.

Then in the seventh, designated hitter Morgan and Trivellini – who along with center fielder Stowasser and first baseman John Morgan helped the Gators advance to a Class 3A basketball sectional final last winter – set the table for Dabrowski.

The lefty-hitting Dabrowski, who doubled to left field and scored on Stowasser’s fly ball in the fifth, hit a 1-0 pitch off righty reliever Dalton Weber where he hits a lot of pitches – the opposite way.

“I just tried to stay with my approach, tried to drive the ball the other way, whether it’s in the gap or over third base, like I did twice,” Dabrowski, who went 2 for 3 with a sacrifice bunt, said after his walk-off hit. “Just can’t change the approach, whether it’s a new pitcher or not, just got to stay on it and be ready.”

Weber had just relieved the sophomore Ouimette, who struck out six and walked three in his six-plus innings.

“They’re a very good team,” Trivellini, who was 2 for 3 with two doubles and two runs scored, said of the Corsairs. “That kid [Ouimette] pitched his butt off. They play in a tough conference [East Suburban Catholic] and play a tough schedule, like us. We knew that even though they were not on the top of the seeding this was a big game.”

South had defensive heroics, too. Carmel threatened to stretch its lead to 4-2 in the sixth when Maurer bounced a pitch in front of the plate with Emerson Larson (leadoff double) on third base with one out and Ouimette at the plate.

The ball caromed away from veteran catcher Jackson Lee, who sprinted about 15 feet, slid and in one motion grabbed the ball and threw a strike to Maurer at the plate. Maurer made a high tag just as Larson was sliding into the plate.

Ouimette then bounced out to end the inning.

“As soon as I threw that ball and it bounced off Jackson’s mitt, I knew I had to get to the plate,” said Maurer, who earned the win, allowing only one hit in 2⅔ innings. “I just dove and tried to tag [the runner]. I credited that one to Jackson. Jackson threw that ball right where it was. I needed him on that play.”

Bogda wasn’t surprised to see his junior catcher make a big play.

“Actually, I thought he blocked it well, and it just got away just enough for the guy to want to try to score,“ Bogda said. ”I thought he did a nice job of staying with it, and I thought, even better, Tanner got to home plate and put a nice tag on him. That was a huge play in the game."