BARCO — Neither coach believed one play made the difference in Tuesday's outcome between Wilson Hunt and Currituck's softball teams.

But a missed out in the seventh inning did give Hunt new life.

The Lady Knights led 1-0 until the Lady Warriors scored four in the last frame to beat Currituck 4-1 in the first round of the 3A playoffs.

Clinging to a 1-0 lead with one out and two Hunt runners on, the Lady Knights got a pop-up near third but confusion led to the ball falling within reach of infielder De'ja Huckoby and catcher Ashley Craft.

Two pitches later, Morgan Ballance hit a game-tying RBI single.

"It's just something that happened," Currituck coach Karen Booker said. "It's been something all year long. Just one little thing happens, then all of a sudden the floodgates would open for the other team. That didn't win it or lose it for me. It would've been two outs, but they still hit the ball three times big after that."

The flood came with batter Amber Parrish, who hit a bases-clearing triple off the wall in left center for the 4-1 outcome.

Before the excitement of the seventh, the Lady Knights held down the Hunt offense. Pitcher Erin Buchan had eight strikeouts and allowed just two hits through six innings of work. Currituck had a runner on in near every frame, breaking through in the second when Jessica Newcomb's hit to short was thrown away, scoring Huckoby.

Currituck almost got Huckoby across home in the fourth off a hit to center by Chelsea Kovack, but she was tagged out at the plate to end the inning.

Huckoby went 2-for-2, while Craft and Kovack were each 2-for-3 on Tuesday.

With the Lady Knights losing five games by a run in 2008, Booker was sure her team needed more runs to get comfortable and move on to the second round.

"They weren't going to come up and look at a bunch of pitches," Booker said. "They were coming up to hit the ball, and they hadn't hit it all night, they had hit it to us. There wasn't a bad play here or there, they just outhit us."

At least in the seventh. Hunt had four of its six hits in the inning, but none bigger than Parrish's smash that was inches short of a grand slam.

"She has been clutch for us all year long," Hunt coach Riley Hurdle said. "She's a freshman, and I can't say enough about Amber. She's putting a bat on the ball at an important time."

It was an important moment for Booker, too. It was her last game coaching Currituck softball and came with some emotions.

"It was going to be a bittersweet day for me anyway: if I win it's my last game here (the second round on the road), if I lose it's my last game here," Booker said. "So it's tough."