Makenna Moore opened the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament with her second shutout in a row.
Moore allowed two hits and three walks with seven strikeouts as No. 4 East Carter beat No. 5 Neelyville 5-0 at Rains Field at Three Rivers College.
"She's improving every game. She's hitting her spots really well," East Carter coach Teresa Kearbey said. "Today she was on. Our hitting was good, our defense was good. We played well today."
Moore also shutout Campbell on Friday and even when Neelyville got solid contact on the ball, the breaks didn't go its way.
"I threw what was called and hoped my defense would back me up," Moore said. "I hit most my spots. There were some pitches that were kind of off."
In the sixth, Madison Dollins hit a shallow fly ball to right field. Naomi Crowley ran in for the catch, the ball bounced out of her glove but she managed so grab the bobble with her bare hand for the out.
An inning later, Tori Harlow pulled a hot line drive down the line, but third baseman Audrey Carter snared the catch, preventing a likely double.
Mackenzie Hobbs' double to left field in the sixth was the Tigers' only hard-hit ball off Moore that didn't go right at somebody.
"We just didn't come up with that big hit. We've been able to do that here lately. I thought our bats have really been coming alive and it just didn't happen today," Neelyville coach Aaron Burton said. "We just couldn't break out of it at any point. I felt like we would. I thought that third, fourth inning, we'd seen (Moore) enough."
Still, Neelyville (4-6) stranded six runners across five different innings.
"We had runners all but two innings. The seventh was the second time we didn't get anybody run," Burton said. "They got runners on and they came through with putting the ball in play."
East Carter (7-2), meanwhile, was able to find those timely hits, particularly for three runs in the third inning.
Up 1-0 with the bases loaded and one out, Maddyson Holloway hit a sacrifice fly to right field that ended up scoring two runs.
Crowley scored easily from third, while Payton Gholson and Brooklyn Loftis advanced. The Tigers cutoff the throw home and tried to throw Gholson out at second. She slid under the tag while Loftis took off for home and slid across the plate ahead of the throw. While that was going on, Gholson took third.
"We played smart. We ran the bases when we needed to. We were trying to get that extra base on steals and their catcher was pretty much on the spot, so we kind of slacked off on that," Kearbey said.
Moore followed all of that with an RBI single to put East Carter ahead 4-0.
Loftis, who scored three times, had a leadoff single and scored in the fifth prior to East Carter stranding the bases loaded.
"We jumped out good. It seemed like the whole lineup hit well and toward the end it seemed like we slacked off and had a few strikeouts," Kearbey said. "Neelyville is a team you don't want to slack off on. They can come back and make you wish you were playing better."
The Tigers advance to face top seed Doniphan, which had a bye, in the semifinals at 3:30 p.m. today at Rains Field.
Clearwater 10, Greenville 6
The Tigers led by a run going into the sixth inning, then batted around and scored five runs. Cheyanne Burton was 2 for 3 with a walk and two runs scored. Rachel Rowold pitched in the win and allowed eight hits and three walks with five strikeouts.
Abby Hillis was 2 for 4 with a double for Greenville. Brooklyn Casinger doubles and had two RBIs while Tristin Porter and Zee Luke also had doubles.
Naylor 5, Twin Rivers 4
The Eagles jumped ahead to a 4-0 lead and fell flat after that, but held on to advance to the OFC semifinals.
Callee Pickrell scored twice for Naylor and had a hit. Shelby Sullivan had two hits and two RBIs while Faith Sullivan had two hits and one RBI. Alyssa Urich pitched in the win and allowed seven hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
Bella Balloway had three hits and scored three times for Twin Rivers. Allie Kacynski pitched and allowed eight hits and three walks with six strikeouts.