PROVIDENCE – Both on the brink of elimination, Moses Brown and Bay View kept their playoff hopes alive with exciting victories in their respective divisions of the Amica Insurance R.I. Interscholastic League Fast-Pitch Softball Championships yesterday at Rhode Island College’s Dayna A. Bazar Memorial Field.

In the opener, Moses Brown’s freshman hurler Liz Kacz pitched herself out of more than a few sticky situations and then delivered the game-winning hit in the eighth, as the Quakers defeated West Warwick, 5-3, in a losers’ bracket game of the Division II tournament.

And in an equally thrilling nightcap, Emily Burbridge scored the game-winner in the sixth as top-seeded Bay View continued its rebound from an opening-round loss by edging La Salle, 9-8, in a Division I losers’ bracket game.

The Bengals will now face Westerly in the Division I losers’ bracket final, tonight at 6 at RIC. Moses Brown will take on Smithfield in the Division II losers’ bracket final, tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.

West Warwick jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first contest when Val Leso led off with a triple into the right-field gap, Chelsea Wynne reached on a walk and Abigail Williamson unloaded a two-out triple to deep right to score them both.

But Moses Brown wasted no time tying it up in the second. Christina Rodriguez led off that inning with a single, went first to third on a single to right by Katie Sullivan, then scored on Emily Granoff’s ground-out to third.

Serving as a courtesy runner for Sullivan, Ilyse Blazer later scored from third on a passed ball to make it 2-2.

And that’s the way it would stay until the eighth inning. Then with Blazer on second by virtue of the international tie-breaker rule, Allie Ziino drew a walk. That brought Kacz to the plate and she proceeded to smack a single to right that scored them both.

Pinchrunning for Kacz, Melissa Gordon advanced to third on a Rodriguez single to left, then scored on a slow roller down the third-base line.

But Kacz had already given her team all the runs it needed, as West Warwick, which stranded a total of eight runners in scoring position, got just one back in the bottom of the eighth despite loading the bases with one out.

“She’s been doing it all year,” Moses Brown coach Norm Beauchemin said of Kacz’s performance. “She just picks it up a notch. She’s got that winning attitude and she never gets rattled. She’s a great kid to have.”

Mary Holt set the tone in the second game, doubling off the right-field fence with two outs and scoring on a Jordan Tingley single to give La Salle a 1-0 lead in the first inning.

Bay View tied it up in the bottom half of the inning when Emily Burbridge led off with a double and scored on a two-out single up the middle by Kristen Mitchell.

The Bengals then took the lead in the second when Mitchell’s older sister Kelly drove in Marian Long, who had led off with a line drive to left.

Long then came through with a two-run double in the fifth to put Bay View up, 4-1.

La Salle staged a four-run rally in the sixth, highlighted by an RBI single by Zeena Barbarita and a three-run double by Gillian Cardarelli, to jump on top.

But that lead was shortlived, as Bay View capitalized on a Kelly Mitchell single, two errors, a sac fly by Kristen Mitchell and a wild pitch to grab two runs in the bottom of the inning.

Relieving starting sophomore Molly Thomsen, who pitched 5 1/3 solid innings, Long walked the first batter, then retired the next three in the seventh to clinch the victory.

“It’s always important to be able to respond,” Bengals coach Dennis Kennedy said of his team’s answer to each of La Salle’s rallies. “We also did it in the first inning after they scored that run. We have 13 juniors and seniors. They’ve been through these wars before, and they know the importance of it. And one of the things I’ve been so impressed with this year is that this team’s demeanor does not change. Whether they’re up 10, whether they’re down 5, they don’t change. And that’s a big part of it.”

cthorn@projo.com