NETTLETON - Mooreville nearly escaped town with a Game 1 victory Thursday in its MHSAA Class 3A fastpitch softball semifinal road game.

With two outs and the bases loaded, the Lady Troopers took a 3-1 lead on a two-run Shelby Howell single in the top of the fifth inning. In the bottom of the inning though, host Nettleton answered with four runs in a 5-3 win.

Nettleton coach Chris Kidd expects nothing less of his Lady Tigers (21-1).

"It's just kind of the mentality of this group," Kidd said. "They never have a die-mentality to them. Down 3-1, I didn't know whether we would or wouldn't get back ahead, but I knew they had it in them. They weren't going to give up."

Kimmy Nicholson, who had two of Nettleton's nine hits, opened the Lady Tigers' fifth with an infield single. The senior stole second base and scored on Heather Noe's left-field double. Katie Leach tied it at 3 with a single to left.

Leach scored on Mackenzie Hawkins' double to left and Hawkins scored when Sydney Clayton reached on one of two Mooreville errors.

"It is a tough loss when you don't play good," said Mooreville coach Perry Wilburn. "If we'd have played good and got beat, it'd have been different. I felt like we played as bad a defense as we've played in a long time. We count on our defense a lot."

Nettleton jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Hayley Parker tripled and scored on a wild pitch. Mooreville (21-9-2) tied it in the fourth on Victoria White's RBI single.

Three of Nettleton's nine hits went for extra bases. Wilburn credited the Lady Tigers with a lot of his team's mistakes.

"We just played bad," he said. "Of course, Nettleton was the cause of a lot of that. They hit the ball hard and you're going to make mistakes when somebody hits the ball hard on you."

Laura Mitchell struck out eight batters in the loss, including the side in the sixth. Michele Hester (16-1) scattered five hits in the first five innings and struck out five in the win.

With Nettleton one win away from a state title shot, Games 2 and 3, if necessary, are scheduled to begin at noon on Saturday at Mooreville.

"In the other series, I thought playing the one on the road first probably wasn't a great idea," Kidd said, "but now playing Mooreville with the reputation they have at their place, getting the 1-0 lead here is big."