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GREENEVILLE—Morristown forced a winner-take-all showdown for the District Four 9-10 Little League Tournament championship by riding the standout pitching of Carter Short to a 4-0 victory over host Greeneville Friday night.

Short tossed the four-hit shutout with last out relief help from Tyson Busler when he ran out of pitches.

The same two teams were to square off at 10 a.m. Saturday morning for the title as both now have one loss.

Morristown scored the only runs it needed with a pair in the top of the first inning and then added single markers in the fourth and fifth frames for the victory.

Short gave up four singles walked two and struck out eight before reaching the pitch-count limit with two out in the sixth inning. Busler came on with two runners on base and calmly struck out the first man he faced to end the game.

Morristown had eight hits with Ketner Dearing leading the way with a pair of singles. Jaxson Draughn, Jace Hayes, David Slagle, Busler, Grayson Cody and Jaxson Quilliams all added singles for the winners.

Losing pitcher Mason Burns, Brantley Foshee, Grayson Welch and Brock Johnson had Greeneville’s hits.

Draughn and Hayes opened the game with bunts that went for hits and scored when Busler banged a base hit to left field.

Coach Cole Draughn said, “We wanted to put pressure on them early whether we had to bunt or whatever. I thought our kids did a great job of getting on the board early and that was huge.

“Carter pitched a whale of a game. I just had a gut feeling that he would do that when we were talking about who we were going to throw earlier in the day.

“He had good control and kept his number of pitches down,” the coach added. “We felt if we could get into the fifth before he ran out of pitches we would be in good shape. Tyson came in there and got the last big out for us.”

Draughn went on to say, “Now, we have to come up here on Saturday and do it again to make it really mean something.”

The winner of the district will play in the state tournament at Maryville.

Morristown only had two hits in a 2-1 loss to Greeneville on Tuesday and Coach Draughn remarked, “We did a better job of swinging the bat than we did against them earlier. Scoring early was really big for us.”

Slagle singled to start the fourth inning and went to second on a wild pitch. He scored on Cody’s base hit to make it 3-0.

The final run came about when Quilliams singled and went to second on a wild pitch. Lucas Justice ran for Quilliams and scored on a two-out hit by Dearing.

Greeneville’s best chance to score came in the fifth when Johnson led off with a single. One out later, Foshee’s grounder was just out of the reach of the shortstop for a hit but the center fielder Hayes threw Johnson out at third base.

Third baseman Busler then threw to second to retire Foshee giving Morristown a rare double play that ended the inning.

The home team got a hit from Welch with one out in the sixth and Cole Matthews walked. However, Short fanned the final batter he faced and Busler came on and got the last out.