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Morristown East used strong pitching backed by a couple of home runs to pass its first test in the District 2-4A Softball Tournament.

Winning hurler Kylie Rader and Ella Wampler combined for a two-hitter with a dozen strike outs and Jaycee Hamilton and Hannah Hall belted home runs as the second-seeded Lady Hurricanes dumped Jefferson County, 6-2, Monday evening at King Park.

The Lady ‘Canes, now 13-16 for the season, advance to face top-seeded Morristown West tonight at 5:30 as the remainder of the tournament moves to J. C. Wild Park. Jefferson County will take on Sevier County in an elimination game following that one.

West smacked Sevier County, 12-1, in Monday’s other tourney contest at West.

Rader pitched four scoreless innings to notch the mound verdict over Tia Stewart. Rader allowed just one infield hit, walked four and struck out nine.

Wampler relieved in the fifth and gave up both runs, one of which was unearned. She allowed one hit and struck out four while not walking a batter.

East collected eight hits in the victory. Adasia Davis was the only player with two. Keeley Shisler added a double and scored the game’s first run.

Mercedes Randolph homered in the sixth for the Lady Patriots, now 10-21, while Ava Garay had the other hit in the second.

“We got two big home runs from a pair of freshmen tonight,” said East coach Sydney Davis. “We hit okay but I would have liked to score a few more runs.”

“Both of our pitchers did a good job and we played pretty good defense even though we had a couple of errors,” added the coach.

“We’re finally starting to execute a little better with runners on base,” Davis said. “I hope we can continue to do that and it pays off for us.

“We’ve got a huge game tomorrow against West and that’s always tough for us.”

It didn’t take the Lady ‘Canes long to take control. Rader struck out two of the three batters she faced in the top of the first, then East got its first two runs.

Shisler got it started with a double to left field and was sacrificed to third by Hudson Cloninger. After a strike out, Hamilton slugged a long home run to center field and it was 2-0.

The Lady Patriots had a scoring chance in the second when Garay got her infield hit and McKaylee Hobby walked. Stewart put down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners up but Rader struck out the next two to get out of trouble.

Both teams were out in order in the third before the Lady Patriots loaded the sacks on three bases on balls in the fourth. However, Rader also had three strike outs in the inning and kept the zero on the Jefferson County side of the scoreboard.

Coach Davis said, “Kylie wasn’t that wild. But its hard to throw strikes or know what pitches to swing at when you don’t know where the strike zone is going to be.”

East came to the plate and broke the game open.

Wampler led off with a single and Hamilton reached on an error. After a strike out, Adasia Davis singled up the middle but center-fielder Garay threw the runner out at the plate for the second out.

But East scored when Kaleah Davis singled in Hamilton. Hall was called on to pinch hit and smacked a three-run homer to right-center field to make it a 6-0 game.

After Wampler set the Lady Patriots down in the fifth, Randolph led off the sixth with a home run that bounced on top of the fence in center and bounced over.

Garay then got on base on a throwing error, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on a passed ball before Wampler got a couple of strike outs. Aubrey McBride drew a walk but the next batter bounced back to Wampler for the third out.

Zoe Shelley and Adasia Davis had hits with one down in the bottom of the sixth but the second baseman grabbed a line drive and double the runner off of first.

Wampler got another strike out to open the seventh and got the next batter on a grounder to Shisler at first. The next hitter got on when the right fielder dropped her fly ball but catcher Shelley picked her off first to end the game.