SMYRNA, Tenn. — It's been a very good year for Marion County head softball coach Kevin Thompson. In his first year coaching the Lady Warriors his team has racked up a record of 35-11 and fought its way to the Division 2A softball championship game.

After a solid 6-2 semifinal win over Summertown Friday at Cedar Stone Park in Smyrna, the Lady Warriors will travel east to Shelbyville looking to defeat Community High School from Unionville in the championship game.

The Vikings stand at 34-9 and will be looking to dash the hopes of the red hot Warriors.

The Warriors (34-11) reached the title game winning two of three battles with the Lady Eagles (35-11) in the run to the final.

“This is my first year at Marion County and this is my first appearance in the TSSAA tournament. I'm very pleased with the kids. My kids have bought in and the coaching staff has bought in and the fans have bought in. We are playing for one another and it has just been a team effort all week,” said Marion County head coach Kevin Thompson.

With storms hurriedly making their way toward Cedar Stone Park, the Warriors quickly put three runs on the board in their first at bat.

Albany Harris started off the day with a single to left field in front of a walk to Brylee Thomasson. Brynn Thomasson stepped in the box and excecuted a perfect sacrifice bunt advancing the runners. The next batter, Emma McCalie, took one for the team to load the bases with no outs prompting an early pitching change by the Eagles.

The change had little effect as Lily Nixon and Hannah Adams came through with singles to put the Warriors out front 3-0.

After a scoreless second inning, McCallie cracked a shot to center that landed her on third base with a triple. Nixon followed with a ground ball that put the Warriors on top 4-0.

Marion added a single run in the top of fourth when Kylee McGown reached on an error and hustled home on a Brylee Thomasson single to short right.

The Eagles broke the shutout in the bottom half of the inning to cut the Marion advantage to 5-1.

Summertown tacked on a second run in the bottom half of the fifth with a pair of triples before the Warriors stopped the mini rally with a fly ball to right field to hang onto a 5-2 lead.

Marion County tacked on an insurance run in the upper portion of the seventh starting with a one out triple down the right-field line off the bat of Brynne Thomasson just before rain brought a halt to the game.

After a 40 minute delay, the rain slacked off enough to resume the action. A pair of walks loaded the bases before Summertown recorded the second out of the inning with a strikeout. From there the Lady Warriors made it 6-2 when Adams trotted to first with an RBI the easy way on a walk that scored Thomasson for a 6-2 cushion.

The Eagles tried to make some noise in their final at bat with two outs. A pair of walks and a hit batter loaded the bases, but the Warriors shut down any hope of a comeback when McCallie got a ground ball to Harris, who fired to first to send Marion County to the championship bracket.

“I'm very pleased with the performance today. We got hit in the mouth a little bit yesterday. We regrouped this morning and they refused to lose today. I could see it in their eyes the way they were warming up and the coaches were dialed in,” said Thompson. “We just beat a heck of a team. Summertown is really good. To beat them two out of three, that just says a lot about our program.”

Just look around at the support. It's been storming all week and it's been monotonous and our fans stuck in there with us,” he continued. “I couldn't be more proud of this community, our school, our alumni and everybody associated with Marion County. It's and awesome feeling. I told them coming over here there are no losers here. There are eight of the finest teams in the state here. No matter if we go 0-2 we are still a winner. There's no losers here. We're still playing tomorrow.”

MARION COUNTY 301 100 1 — 6 10 1

SUMMERTOWN 300 100 0 — 2 5 0

Thomasson, McCallie (6) and Nixon; Woods, Parson (5) and Taylor.

WP: Brynna Thomasson LP: Mary Parson 3B: Brynne Thomasson, Emma McCallie (MC); Mae Ricks,Reagan Stephens (S); 2B: Elizabeth Garland (S). HIGHLIGHTS: Harris 2-2 RS, Brylee Thomasson RS RBI, Brynne Thomasson RS, McCallie 1-2 2RS, Lily Nixon 2-3, Kylee McGowan RS (MC): Ricks RBI, Elizabeth Garland 2-3 RS, Stephens RS (S). RECORDS: Marion County 35-11; Summertown 34-9.