WIND UP — Edison’s Ali Shrieve delivers from the circle during Thursday’s sectional game. - Mike Hughes

RICHMOND — Despite its 8-12 record and two recent losses to top-seeded Edison, Claymont traveled to Richmond on Thursday and performed its best Cinderella impersonation.

The Mustangs did so for about 3 1/2 innings, keeping the Wildcats at bay offensively and taking advantage of uncharacteristic errors in building a 3-1 lead heading into the home half of the fourth.

But as in most cases involving an upstart underdog, midnight finally occurred as the hosts stormed back to claim a 9-5 sectional co-championship in Ohio Division III.

The ‘Cats await word on their next opponent. The opposite sectional co-final between No. 8 seeded Garaway and No. 4 Sandy Valley will be played today after being postponed because of weather.

Edison owns an 8-2 win against those Cardinals back on April 20. But before a potential rematch with Sandy Valley could be discussed, the Wildcats needed to corral these pesky Mustangs.

The first move in that direction came in the second inning.

Starting pitcher Pressley Meadows was having a rare off day-not bad, per say, but not up to her lofty standards.

Meadows allowed one run on one hit through 1 1/3 innings of work, but did walk three batters. Head coach McKenzie Morrison opted to make a change, bringing in Ali Shrieve.

Shrieve Did allow four runs on four hits the remainder of the game, but she had a penchant for getting out of jams. In fairness, three of those four runs were unearned as Edison committed four errors.

It was similar to Edison’s first win against Claymont earlier this month in a 17-10 slugfest that saw the Wildcats commit eight errors, allowing seven unearned runs to cross.

Shrieve again was instrumental in Edison regaining the lead in an all-important home half of the fourth.

Becka Evans drew a bases loaded walk to cut the lead to 3-2. Shrieve, the team’s No. 2 hitter, then ripped a hard ground ball into left field, scoring two runs and advancing to second on the throw.

That put Edison up 4-3, with Abby Boka drawing another bases-loaded walk two batters later for a 5-3 score.

Claymont didn’t go away just yet, tying the score the next half inning, playing opportunistically and pushing across two runs on a single error.

The score stood 5-5 but Edison wasn’t allowing the visitors to think a comeback was a possibility.

Evans hit a sac grounder to bring in a run the next half inning to start a four-run scoring barrage. Shrieve followed with an RBI base hit, Boka again displayed patience with another RBI walk and Sophia Henderson reached on an error after she hit a solid grounder to the left side.

Four runs later, Edison held a commanding lead at 9-5 and Shrieve allowed just one hit and struck out two the next two innings to preserve the win.

The win improves the Wildcats to 23-4 in Morrison’s first season at the helm after taking over for longtime boss and OVAC great Spencer Bendle.

The district semifinal will take place Monday at a location to be determined.

Edison 9, Claymont 5

Claymont 011 120 0 – 5 6 2

Edison 100 440 x – 9 5 4

C – Rose lp (2SO, 12W) and Johnson. Edwards D; Devore S, rbi;

E – Meadows (1SO, 3W), Shrieve (2) wp (9SO, 5W) and Evans. Evans S, 2rbi; Shrieve 2S, 3rbi; Boka 2rbi; Henderson 2rbi.