McKenna Gregory threw a four-hitter and drove in a run and teammate Shelby Thompson added a solo home run as Benicia High’s softball team beat No. 2 seed Elk Grove, 2-1, at the Sacramento Softball Complex on Monday to reach Wednesday’s Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship round.

The Lady Panthers (27-4), trying to become the first Benicia High team in any sport to win back-to-back Sac-Joaquin Section championships, are unbeaten in this year’s playoffs and must be beaten twice on Wednesday to be denied another crown. Benicia, currently riding a season-best 14-game winning streak, will face either Elk Grove, Merced or Del Campo in the championship round at the Sacramento Softball Complex beginning at 5 p.m. The Lady Panthers have already defeated Elk Grove and Merced in the postseason.

“It’s a huge accomplishment,” Benicia manager Kristin Grubbs said of her team’s return to the championship round. “We have a good cushion but we don’t want to go to a second do-or-die game. We’ll go in there with the mentality of winning that first game and getting it over with as soon as we can.”

The top-seeded Lady Panthers broke a scoreless tie against Elk Grove (26-3) with a lone run in the bottom of the third inning. Singles by Alana Combes, Mallory Barnard and Thompson loaded the bases with two outs, and Gregory delivered an infield single (Benicia’s third infield single in the inning) that scored Barnard to make it 1-0. It stayed that way until the bottom of the fifth when Thompson launched a two-out home run (her team-leading ninth of the year) to make it 2-0.

Elk Grove did its best to rally in the top of the sixth. Grubbs elected to intentionally walk a batter that loaded the bases with only one out. Victoria Saborio grounded out to first that brought home one run, but Gregory got the next batter to fly out to short to preserve the lead.

“You’re either the hero or the goat as a coach when you walk somebody to load the bases, but it worked out for us,” Grubbs said. “We were in a defensive position where we were OK to give up just the one run.”

Gregory only struck out one batter but got great defensive help from her teammates. Right fielder Courtney Bowling threw out a runner at third, with third baseman Brianna Schlattman alertly making the tag when the runner over-slid the base.

“McKenna has had great command of her pitches and is very stoic on the mound,” Grubbs said. “She doesn’t show much emotion and just goes out there and does her job. And we’ve been playing fantastic defense and we need to keep that up no matter who we face.”

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