LIVERMORE — All Kaci Norton could do was watch.

“Very nerve-wracking in the dugout,” Livermore’s starting pitcher said after her team’s 6-4 victory. “Kind of sitting there, praying.”

Second-seeded Livermore trailed No. 7 Alameda by two runs entering the bottom of the sixth inning on Friday in the quarterfinals of the North Coast Section Division I playoffs, and the Cowboys were six outs away from the end of their season.

Livermore put two runners on base as Laine Macosky walked to lead off the inning, and Gianna Willes singled to get the tying run on base.

Alameda pitcher Julia Lambert retired the next two Livermore batters, putting the Cowboys in a precarious position.

But they were ready to meet the moment.

Sydney Aguilar walked to load the bases, then freshman Jules McCafferty stepped up to the plate. On the first pitch of the at-bat, McCafferty hit a bloop to right field. It fell in front of Alameda right fielder Sadie Ramirez, tying the score. Then Eliza Gerochi and Sophia Gerochi laced back-to-back RBI singles, and suddenly Livermore had a two-run lead.

After that, it was Norton’s turn to come through. The junior finished off a complete game with a 1-2-3 seventh inning, and the Cowboys had officially lassoed a playoff victory from the jaws of defeat.

“Another year off my life,” Livermore coach Andy Paulazzo quipped. “Ain’t got many left at 60.”

Paulazzo is lucky that McCafferty was unfazed by the moment in her first NCS playoff game. The four-sport star, who also made the Cowboys’ varsity flag football and basketball teams in her first year at Livermore, had faith that the time she had put in would pay off.

“All the work that I’ve put in leading up to that, there is no pressure there,” said McCafferty, whose team advances to play host to Casa Grande in the semifinals Wednesday. “Just leave it up to God and hope for the best. I hoped (it would drop). But all I knew is I was rounding first and it was on the ground. It was great.”

There wasn’t much in the previous innings to indicate that Livermore (19-8) was poised for a comeback. After Sophia Gerochi led off the bottom of the third with a solo home run into the right-field netting, the Cowboys trailed 4-2.

But they couldn’t get much traffic on the basepaths after that as no runner advanced past first base in the next two innings. For a good long while, it appeared Lambert was a puzzle Livermore wouldn’t be able to solve.

“We did really well defensively in innings one through five,” Alameda coach Meida Tautalatasi said. “We could have hit a lot more rather than just that one inning where we got the four runs.”

Alameda’s four-run offensive explosion in the third changed the game, but Norton buckled down afterward and gave Livermore a chance to come back.

“Our team always comes back, and they always have my back,” Norton said.