KINGSTON -- The remaining teams in the Division 2 state softball tournament might look back and regret the day that underdog Danvers let Plymouth North off the hook.

The ninth-seeded Blue Eagles profiled as a team poised for a deep playoff run, but they almost were vaporized in the very first round on Sunday. A three-run rally in the bottom of the seventh staved off elimination, and North eventually pushed across a run in the eighth to oust the No. 24 seed and live to fight another day.

Given a second chance at postseason glory, the Blue Eagles are determined not to waste it.

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So far, so good, as they followed up what coach Sue Harrison called their first-round "great escape" with a wire-to-wire 5-1 win over fellow Patriot League power Silver Lake on Tuesday.

"That first game definitely was too close for comfort," senior shortstop Kylee Carafoli said, "but we pulled through in the last inning."

Plymouth North's 13-player roster features nothing but seniors (8 total, 7 of whom started Tuesday) and sophomores (5). The Class of '22 portion of lineup got a huge scare against Danvers and has vowed not to say goodbye just yet.

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North's season now will extend at least through Friday when the Eagles (20-2) travel to No. 1 Billerica (15-7) for a 4 p.m. quarterfinal.

"Last game, we got very emotional when we were down," Carafoli said. "We were like, 'This can't be it. We need another swing at things.'"

Said coach Sue Harrison: "They know each game they walk out here could be their last. And they don't want it to be their last, so they come fired up every day -- at practice and then when they step on the field for a game."

No. 8 Silver Lake (19-3) and North split their two regular-season meetings with each winning on the road. They had identical records entering the tournament and were seeded one spot apart. The winner-take-all third matchup, predictably, was dead even for a while -- scoreless through 3 innings -- but some uncharacteristically shaky defense by Silver Lake ultimately let North break through.

Senior pitcher Caroline Collins, who had been lifted early in the Danvers game, found her groove this time, scattering six hits over 6 strong innings with six strikeouts and two walks.

"I came in today super focused," said Collins, who threw 98 pitches, 64 for strikes, before Kylee Hefner closed it out with a 1-2-3 seventh inning.

"She pitched amazing today," Carafoli said of Collins, "probably one of her best games."

Collins was helped out by some terrific defense, including Carafoli's diving stop of Delaney Moquin's sharp grounder in the fifth. After smothering the ball, Carafoli dove to tag second base for a force play that ended the inning.

"My vacuum," Harrison said. "Nothing really gets by her."

Playing second base before her relief appearance, Hefner started a 4-6-3 double play with a nice backhand stop in the third, one batter after Meg Banzi made a diving catch in center field.

"I can always count on (my fielders), always," Collins said. "There's not one person where I'm like, 'Oh, no (don't hit it to her).' Everybody always backs me up."

Offensively, it was a team effort for North as five different players scored and six contributed hits, including two each from Emily Jenkins, Carafoli and Banzi. The Eagles had nine hits overall and would have scored more if Silver Lake ace Caroline Peterson hadn't stranded 11 runners.

"Caroline pulled some Harry Houdini's today in terms of getting out of trouble," Lakers coach Tony Pina said of the senior, who was the Patriot League Keenan Division MVP this season.

Peterson (15-1 with a 1.63 ERA in the regular season) probably deserved a better fate as only one of North's runs -- Maggie Ladd's solo homer leading off the seventh -- came via a hit. The others scored on a wild pitch, a dropped fly ball, a confused scene in which a pop fly fell in the infield with the infield fly rule in effect, and an error.

North, which has been belting the ball all spring, was opportunistic in this one. But style points don't matter in the playoffs.

"I'm so proud of these girls," Harrison said. "Tony has a great (Silver Lake) team. They put hits together, and Caroline Peterson is a really good pitcher. But we came to play and we came to hit. They did what they needed to do -- they put the ball in play, they capitalized on little mistakes and they got the job done."

North took a 1-0 lead in the fourth when pinch runner Arianna Durette raced home from third on a wild pitch with Grace Beatty at the plate with two outs. Beatty set the table by fouling off a pair of two-strike pitches before Peterson's 2-2 offering sailed to the backstop. Beatty eventually walked.

"Grace is a smart batter," Harrison said. "She has a lot of walks this season. She stands in there and knows when to swing and knows when to lay off the high ones. She has good at-bats."

North scored twice in the fifth to make it 3-0. Silver Lake freshman Madyson Bryan (2 for 3) singled home a run in the bottom of the frame to make it 3-1, but Ladd gave North some breathing room in the seventh by rocketing an 0-1 pitch over the fence in left-center leading off.

That made it 4-1, and North tacked on a final run on an error.

"I knew she's a really good pitcher, but every game, a pitcher always lets one hang," Ladd said. "She did and I was just ready to hit it out. It was very exciting."

Ladd might have set a PR in terms of fastest time rounding the bases after her blast. "I had too much adrenaline," she said with a laugh. "I was going as fast as I could."

The ending was tough to swallow for Silver Lake, which lost to only one non-Plymouth North opponent all year -- Hingham, back on April 12.

"As I told the girls at the end of the game, only one team in the Div. 2 tournament ends the season with a win. Only one," Pina said. "Everyone is fighting and scraping to put off (losing) as long as possible. We can't let this game, which I don't think was one of our cleaner games this season, and how we feel (about it) define us.

"Easier said than done, but these girls should be very proud of how they came together all season. (We went) 19-3. There are teams that won't ever come close to 19 wins. So we just need to take all the good we can (out of it) when the sting of the loss fades away, and it will."

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Four of the first five hitters in the Silver Lake batting order Tuesday were either sophomores or freshmen, so expect Pina's team to be in the mix again in 2023.

As for senior-laden North, the Eagles will try to keep the gang together a little longer.

"It never really hit any of us until that last game when we almost lost that it was going to be our last time playing together," Collins said. "We've played together for our whole lives. It definitely hit us all. Last game fired us up. We want to keep going. We want to win."