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Morristown’s Collin Rouse hooked up against Greeneville’s Titus Randolph in a true pitcher’s duel Thursday night as Morristown opened the District Four Little League Tournament with a 2-0 victory.

Rouse needed just 71 pitches in tossing a three-hitter and Morristown scored both its runs in the top of the third inning for the victory.

Morristown can win the tournament title and a berth in the state tournament with a victory as the same two square off at Greeneville on Friday. There are only two teams playing for the championship and the first to win twice will advance.

Rouse allowed only three singles and walked one in notching the mound decision over Randolph who also pitched extremely well.

Rouse walked just one batter and struck out 11 as the losers had two runners in just one inning and a total of four in the game.

Randolph gave up two hits, walked one and fanned seven.

Morristown manager Keith Rouse said, “It was a really good Little League baseball game.

“I thought both runners pitched really well,” he added. “Collin had a good night and their kids did a good job also.”

With the new rule for tournament play being that everyone on the team is in the batting order, Rouse said, “We chose our team for the fact that all 12 of them can hit the baseball and we got both our runs from the bottom of the lineup tonight.

“We challenged them to do whatever they had to do to get on base and I was pleased with what we were able to do in that one good inning,” Rouse stated.

The coach closed, “It came down to the fact that Collins threw a lot of strikes and we played good defense behind him. Winning this first one is huge and now we just need one more.”

Greeneville got the first hit in the second when Brayden Pokorny singled to right field. However, he turned to go to second on the play and Morristown’s Wyatt Jones threw him out so far that he tried to go back to fiirst where he was out.

In the top of the third, Trooper Rader got the winners’ only walk of the night to lead off. He was forced at second by Lane Synamon but Cooper Kinler banged a base hit to right field.

Both of those runners scored. Synamon came across on a wild pitch and Kinsler scooted in on a passed ball. That was more than Rouse needed.

He walked a man in thefourth but had two strike outs before the visitors had their only scoring chance in the fifth. Randolph led off with an infield hit before Rouse retired the next two hitters.

Christian Myers then singled sharply to left to put runners on the corners. But Rouse struck out the next man to get out of trouble and then set the losers down in order in the final frame.