Coming off a 5-1 extra inning win over the Missouri Bulls earlier in the day, the Marshall County Dusters (18-13) were simply outgunned in their second pool game at the MTSU Top Ten tournament, as they lost 8-0 in five innings to a strong Nashville Knights team on Friday afternoon at Siegel High School.

Dominating

Knight starting pitcher Austin Smith turned in a dominant performance on the mound and tossed a no-hitter while issuing no walks and notching six strikeouts en route to picking up the win. Marshall County did have two men reach base on an error and a hit batsman, but both runners were quickly erased on double plays.

Boasting six players on their roster that have already committed to Division I college programs, Nashville finished with eight hits and two walks against two Duster pitchers to go along with two hit batsman and two Marshall County errors.

Greg Lambert (1 RBI) and Kyle Conger both tallied two hits to lead the Knights' offensive charge, while Collin Dupree (2 RBI), Kyle Wright (1 RBI), Chase Slone (1 RBI), and Alex Junior each had one hit.

Duster starting pitcher Ryan McDaniel suffered the loss after allowing seven runs over two and a third innings of work on seven hits and a walk. Lane Whitesell came on in relief of McDaniel and yielded one run over an inning and two-thirds on one hit and one walk.

Damaging errors

"They have a lot of talent, but we also have to play well when we face a team like this," said Marshall County coach Mike Reese. "We made a couple of errors that hurt us and they capitalized on them. We also didn't hit well and I was disappointed about that."

Nashville pounced on the Dusters early, as they crossed home plate three times in the bottom of the first inning on the strength of a walk by Conger, a Lambert single, a RBI single by Slone, and a Dupree two-run double to seize a 3-0 lead.

McDaniel held the Knights scoreless in the second inning, but Nashville pushed across four runs in the bottom of the third with the help of a single by Conger, a Junior infield single, two Marshall County errors, a RBI triple by Wright, a Lambert RBI double, two hit batsmen, and a wild pitch to forge a 7-0 advantage.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Knights brought the mercy rule into effect when Matthew Cogen scored on a wild pitch to make it 8-0 after drawing a leadoff walk, advancing to second on a Conger single, and stealing third.

Smith then struck out the side in the top of the fifth to wrap up the win for Nashville.