A 2-1 day at the Region 6-A Tournament on Thursday and solid showing throughout the week earned the Mt. Zion High School softball team a third-place finish in the region and will hopefully be enough to land the Lady Eagles a berth in the Class A state tournament next week.

MZ (18-12) defeated Darlington, 3-2, and Trion, 6-4, before falling 10-0 in five innings against No. 8 Mt. Pisgah.

Ashley Smith hit a pair of two-run home runs in the win over Trion, while Jayde Bradley and Madison Logan both pitched well throughout the day.

The new Class A format — splitting private and public schools from each other in the state tournament — means the only guaranteed spot to get a berth from the tournament is by winning the region tourney. The Lady Eagles came into the tournament as No. 12 in the Class A power rankings, where the top-16 ball clubs qualify for state.

The only two losses for MZ in the tournament came against No. 1 Gordon Lee and No. 8 Mt. Pisgah.

“I feel good about our performance in the tournament. I think that will help us in the power rankings. I think we’ve got a good shot of being in the top 16. Even losses to those two — Gordon Lee and Mt. Pisgah — they give you quite a few points because of how many wins they have,” MZ coach Millie Grimes said. “So we’ll just wait and see for next Wednesday when the power rankings are done and we’ll find out where we fall.”

Region 5-AAAA Tournament

Alexander 2, Carrollton 0: The Lady Trojans will enter the Class AAAA state playoffs as the No. 3 seed after the two-run loss against the Lady Cougars in LaGrange on Thursday afternoon.

No. 7 Carrollton (25-7) will face the second seed out of Region 8-AAAA — either Walnut Grove or Madison County — on the road in the first round.