KINGSTON — The game is never over until it is over.

That’s a lesson the Poulsbo Junior High girls fastpitch team learned in a sour May 18 loss to their cross-county rival Kingston Junior High Cavaliers. Though the Lady Panthers led nearly the entire game, Kingston engineered a comeback taking advantage of blue errors and creating red opportunities in the final three innings.

One such red opportunity lent itself to a Jenneke Oostman solo, inside-the-park home run which sealed the rally, and secured the 7-6 win for the Lady Cavs.

“I keep telling the girls, ‘It’s a seven inning game, keep your head in it, keep focused, just keep playing the game,’” said KJH coach Joe Schiel. “And they did. I was very proud of them, nobody quit.”

Perseverance was a theme for both teams as the game boiled down to a battle in the bottom of the seventh.

After opening with a 4-run first inning, Poulsbo carried a 4-2 lead into the fourth. Then the Lady Panthers’ bats came alive again in the top of the fifth as Jordan Chargualaf smashed a drive to the gap in right center field, scoring two runs, to give PJH the four-run, 6-2 lead heading into the final stretch.

But that was the last lead that the Panthers would enjoy as the Lady Cavs scored five runs in the final three innings to overcome the deficit and steal the game.

“We were a little too set on what we had and we didn’t really go forward anymore,” Chargualaf said of the Panthers’ offense.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, the Lady Panthers were still clutching a three-run lead when Kingston’s Lauren Moon stepped up to plate to slice an RBI double to deep left, invigorating an otherwise quiet Cavalier bench.

Then a somewhat dejected Poulsbo defense committed two costly errors which allowed two easy Kingston runs to tie the game at six going into the final inning.

Heads-up base running on offense brought Kingston back into the game, however, it was the team’s rock steady defense which provided the means for the win, Schiel noted.

In the top of the seventh inning, Poulsbo’s dugout chatter revved as Ellen Hess opened with a single. Then Chargualaf followed with a single, moving Hess to third base. But that is where she would stay as KJH’s daunting hurler Oostman retired the Panthers’ last chance with a strikeout.

In the final half of the inning, Oostman was at the other end of the equation.

“When she’s on the plate she’s intimidating. She really hits the ball hard, it’s just a matter of her finding it,” Schiel said. “Once she finds it, she wails on it.”

Oostman ripped a bullet past the Panthers’ left fielder which rolled to the back of the fenceless KJH field, granting her clearance to all four bases and giving Kingston the 7-6 win.

Next up, the Lady Cavs will host Sedgwick, starting at 3 p.m. May 23, while the Lady Panthers will host Bremerton at 3 p.m. May 23. Both teams have four games remaining in 2006.