Despite bowing out in the WPIAL semifinals, the Norwin baseball team won’t soon forget what got them there.

Their ears are still ringing from the noise.

Norwin was down 3-0 heading to the bottom of the seventh in its Class 6A quarterfinal against Central Catholic at Gateway. The Knights’ season was hanging by a thread.

But that is just about the time the offense found a spark.

No, this one wasn’t over yet. And neither was Norwin’s season.

The fourth-seeded Knights (13-8) rallied to score four runs and knock off the Vikings, 4-3, and return to the semifinals.

“I told the kids, this (comeback) is something you’re never going to forget,” Norwin coach Craig Spisak said. “You could be 80 years old, and you’ll never forget that one.”

Norwin didn’t have a hit after five innings against Josh McFadden and failed to score after loading the bases in the sixth. A single by Ethan McMullen and a walk to Dante Marino was followed by a balk.

Trevor Vitsas knocked in the first run with a groundout, and Tristyn Tavares was hit by a pitch and scored on Caden Sivrich’s single.

With two outs, another hit batter kept the Knights alive, and Josh Funk tied it 3-3 with an infield single.

“We are just the type of team to never give up,” Tavares said. “We have had plenty of experience in the playoffs with ups and downs, so we all had confidence that it wasn’t over yet. And as the inning was playing along, it just kept building confidence that we were going to win.”

With the bases loaded Ryan Helphenstine was plunked and it all ended on a walk-off hit-by-pitch for a dramatic 4-3 win.

“That final inning was probably the most fun I’ve ever had on a baseball field,” Helphenstine said. “For the first time in that game, it felt like everything finally clicked. The hitters started doing their jobs, the bench brought the energy, and our amazing fans got to their feet right along with us.”

Helphenstine offered this on his team’s belief that it could still rally in the 11th hour.

“I’ll borrow a quote from Lightning McQueen,” Helphenstine said. “’We just never believed we couldn’t.’ We know we’re a dangerous team that can hit from top to bottom, and we understood we were always just one pitch, one hit, or one inning away from turning things around.”

The Knights saw their season end two days later with a 9-3 loss to top-seeded Butler (19-3) in the semifinals. Caden Sivrich went 2 for 4 with a double and first-inning home run for the Knights.