Savannah Henningson knew she could gut it out one more day.

The Cinco Ranch senior had pitched 12 innings in two days, but she knew she was needed for one more game on Saturday as Cinco Ranch went up against Bellaire in a winner take all game three of the area round.

Henningson stepped up and put together a gem of a game, throwing four shutout innings in a 4-0 win over Bellaire, helping lead the Cougars to the third round of the playoffs for the second time in three years by striking out two, walking one and only allowing three hits through her four innings. As Henningson allowed just one earned run over 16 innings and three games against Bellaire in the area round.

“I’ve just found someone to play for and for me that’s my teammates,” Henningson said. “I want to stay and play with my team and keep going another week. I pushed through because I want to play with my team a little bit longer. It was so fun to see how we rallied this week, every single player was a part of it and it means so much to all of us. We just want to keep going.”

Cinco got a huge boost in the top of the first inning. The Cougars loaded the bases on two singles and a walk before Katie Schmidt Pena drew a walk that gave Cinco the lead. Henningson then hit a pop up sky high in the infield and it was misplayed by the Bellaire defense and two more runs came in to score off the error.

“It was huge for us to get that early lead,” said Cinco Ranch head coach Suzanne Reeve. “They made some mistakes and fortunately we were able to capitalize on it. Our defense on the other hand our defense played very well today, it proves that we can play on this level and I think we’re peaking at the right moment.”

Henningson held Bellaire at bay and Cinco scored a fourth run in the fifth inning when they got a runner on third and then after an infield fly Bellaire committed a throwing error, allowing the runner to cross home plate. Gaby Perez then came in and pitched a strong final three innings, allowing just one hit while striking out three and walking two to help clinch the series for Cinco.

“These girls play for each other and every time Gaby comes in she says she’s going to close it out for Savannah,” Reeve said. “That’s the mindset in the program, they are all playing for someone else and that’s what has carried us through the playoffs.”

Up next for the Cougars it will be a District 19-6A battle in the regional quarterfinals. Cinco will take on Katy, time and dates to be determined with the winner advancing to the regional semifinals.

“I think we’re ready, we’ve been ready for it I think,” Henningson said. “We know how good they are but we are going to go in there confident and play our game. We are playing good softball right now so we are going to go in there and keep doing that and play for each other.”