After receiving a first round bye in the single elimination portion of the tournament, the Marshall County Tigerettes advanced to the semifinals of the Lincoln County Border Battle by defeating the Tullahoma Lady Wildcats 4-0 in five innings on Saturday afternoon in the quarterfinals to record their eighth straight win.

MCHS starting pitcher Grace Medley kept Tullahoma's offense under wraps and limited the Lady Wildcats to just one hit and one walk in the contest while registering four strikeouts en route to picking up the victory.

6 and 6

The Tigerettes (16-6), meanwhile, finished with a modest six hits against Tullahoma starting pitcher Dani Kilpatrick and reliever Amber Clark, but drew six walks to go along with a hit batsman and two Lady Wildcat errors.

"Tullahoma was coming off a great win over Hendersonville, but Grace did a good job of hitting her spots and keeping them off balance," said Marshall County coach Holly Cook. "We also got some timely hits when we needed them."

Austyn Whaley led MCHS at the plate by going 2-for-3 with a double, a RBI, and a run scored, while Morgan Moyers, Madison Thomason, Madison Hargrove, and McKenzie Anderson all had one hit.

Megan Grenier singled to account for Tullahoma's lone hit of the contest. Kilpatrick suffered the loss in the circle after yielding two runs over two innings on two hits and three walks.

The Lady Wildcats had a chance to get on the board in the top of the first inning when Alyssia Bowen drew a one-out walk and stole second, but Medley retired the next two Tullahoma batters on a strikeout and a groundout to snuff out the threat.

Marshall County then staked Medley to a 2-0 lead by pushing across two runs in the bottom of the first. After Thomason singled and Watkins drew a walk to put runners on first and second with one out, Whaley plated Thomason with a RBI single while Watkins also scored on the play thanks to an error by Lady Wildcat right fielder Kerstin White.

The Tigerettes left the bases loaded in the second inning, but tallied two runs in the bottom of the third with the help of a leadoff double by Whaley, a Crabtree sacrifice bunt, a passed ball, a two-out walk by Mecia Reed, an Anderson single, and a Tullahoma error to open up a 4-0 advantage.

That proved to be all the run support that Medley would need, as she worked around a one-out single by Grenier in the fourth inning before retiring the Lady Wildcats in order in the top of the fifth. The game was then called in the bottom of the fifth inning due to time restrictions.