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MARYVILLE—Although it was far from its best baseball, Morristown staged an incredible rally to slip past Clarksville National, 9-8, Saturday afternoon in the opening round of the Little League 9-10 State Tournament.

Clarksville grabbed a 7-1 lead after the top of the third innings but Morristown continued to battle back and eventually tied the game at 7-7 in the bottom of the fourth frame on a two-run single by Jaxson Draughn.

The losers regained the lead in the top of the fifth but Morristown scored twice in the bottom of the inning and kept Clarksville off the scoreboard in the sixth to capture the victory.

With the win, Morristown was to play Lexington at 5 p.m. on Sunday in the winners brackett semifinals. In Saturday’s other games, Lebanon smacked Daniel Boone, 22-4; Goodlettsville dumped Columbia, 5-1; and Lexinton topped host Maryville.

Morristown was its own worst enemy on Saturday as it committed 10 errors in the game and had at least one in every inning except the final one.

Coach Cole Draughn said, “We certainly didn’t play good baseball. We made just too many mistakes.

“But I’m extremely proud of the way these boys kept battling and pulled out the win,” he said. “It would have been easy to give up when we got so far behing early in the game but these guys continued to play hard and finally started to bounce back.

“We made a lot of bad plays but we made the ones we had to have to come out with the win. In the end, that’s what really matters and that’s staying out of that losers bracket.”

Jaxson Draughn and David Slagle had two hits each for Morristown while Tyson Busler added a double and Grayson Cody, Madsdox Rich and Wyatt Watkins all had singles.

Tanner Epps, the second of three Morristown hurlers picked up the mound victory over Nolan Lingg.

Carter Short was the starter for Morristown and Epps relieved as Clarksville scored three times in the third. Busler pitched the sixth to get the save.

Clarksville starting pitcher Cam Sutton had two hits for the losers. He pitched one inning while Drew Baggett, Turner Hightower and Lingg also saw mound duty.

The losers scored two runs in each of the first two innings before the winners got on the scoreboard in the second when Cody got on by an error and scored on a ground out by Jaxson Quilliams.

Beau Parcells, Sutton and Baggett all had hits as Clarksville stretched its lead to 7-1 in the third.

However, Morristown got four runs back in the bottom of the inning. Ketner Dearing walked and Draughn had an infield single. The first run scored as Jace Hayes reached on an error before Busler walked to load the bases.

David Slagle drew a base on balls to force in a run and Short knocked in another on a ground out. Morristown got within 7-5 when Busler scored on an error.

Morristown loaded the bases in the fourth when Rich had a hit, Justice walked and Dearing was hit by a pitch. Draughn then smaked a single to tie the game at 7-7.

Clarksville took the lead on a pair of errors in the top of the fifth but Busler got on by an error to start the bottom of the inning. Slagle single to left and both round up scoring on wild pitches to give Morristown its first lead.

In the sixth, Busler hit a batter with one out before getting the second out on a pop up to second. Morgan walked to put runners on first and second but the next batter grounded out to shortstop Draughn to end it.