Catalina Foothills scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh, and had the tying run at the plate, but Sahuaro held on to defeat the Falcons 7-5 Friday night, one day after the Cougars built a 10-1 lead at Buena, only to lose the game 11-10.

Sahuaro (9-4 in power-rankings games, 3-1 in region play) led Buena 10-1 in the sixth inning Thursday night but the Colts scored one run in the bottom of the sixth and eight more in the seventh to force an extra inning where the Colts prevailed with a run in the bottom of the eighth.

The Buena loss and the Catalina Foothills win came right after the Cougars scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh to beat Marana Mountain View 6-5. It’s safe to say, the Cougars are living on the edge, but have been rewarded with a No. 10 ranking in the 5A Conference.

Meanwhile, Catalina Foothills (5-6, 1-2) mounted two seventh-inning comebacks in the 4A Kino Region but came up short both times. The Falcons scored four runs in the bottoms of the seventh in a 5-4 loss to Canyon del Oro and scored one run in the bottom of the seventh in a 3-2 loss to Salpointe. Even though the 7-5 loss Friday night was to an upper-division opponent, it showed the same pattern.

There is no play-in bracket in 4A play so the 19^th ranked Falcons have to convert some of these games to wins in order to qualify for the 16-team playoffs but things don’t get much easier with another game against CDO and Salpointe down the road along with two games against Nogales.

The Falcons scored two runs in the bottom of the first thanks to a two-out double from Dante DeNiro and a couple of hits from Addison Ryberg and Chris Kowalcek but Travis Cole (1-3) settled down and limited the Falcons the rest of the way until he was replaced by Landon Ogle.

Cole Altherr (2-3) kept the Cougars at bay until Sam Kalberer picked up an RBI in the top of the third to score Stockton Pringle. The Cougars took the lead with three runs in the fourth, one run in the fifth and two more in the sixth.

Pringle finished 3-for-4 with two doubles to lead the Cougars while Roberto Mejia, Kalberer and Dylan Lane had two hits each.

The Falcons mounted their comeback with two outs in the bottom of the seventh with Noah Cullen beating out an infield hit and Matthew Cullen following with a double. An error brought in two runs and then Alec Larson reached on a hit-by-pitch. He would score on a balk later in the inning and DeNiro would single and advance to second but Ogle induced a pop fly to end the threat.

DeNiro went 3-4 with a double and Noah Cullen went 3-3. Sam Alberts and Will Saul also saw pitching action.

The Falcons will host Desert View on Monday, Apr. 10 and Sahuaro will host Cienega on Tuesday, Apr. 11.