Murphy tosses second no-hitter of the season, No. 7 Lady Tigers knock off top-ranked Winfield, 3-0

Chapmanville's Chloe Murphy throws a pitch during last week's 1-0 loss at Lincoln County. Murphy pitched a no-hitter Monday night in the Lady Tigers 3-0 win over top-ranked Winfield (Photo courtesy of CKG Graphics).

Bill Lusk | WVOW Sports

CHAPMANVILLE Chloe Murphy threw her second no-hitter of the season Monday night, striking out 15 in the seventh-ranked Lady Tigers 3-0 win over top-ranked Winfield in a battle of two of the top seven ranked Class AAA teams in the West Virginia MetroNews high school softball power rankings at Ronnie "Mule" Ooten Field.

Murphy, who threw a three-inning no-hitter in a 20-0 win over Wayne on March 26, walked three and hit one batter for Chapmanville, who improved to 7-3 and have won three straight games.

The closest the Lady Generals came to a hit was when Mattie Carroll led off the top of the seventh with a hard grounder that was misplaced and ruled an error. Three batters later, Murphy struck out Ava Cole for her 15th strikeout and final out preserving her second no-hitter.

Winfield (12-4) lost its third straight game and had a chance to take an early lead in the top of the first inning. On the game's second pitch, Evie Loyd was hit by a Murphy pitch and stole second and third base, but with two outs, Loyd tried to score on a pitch that went off the glove of catcher Evy Altizer, who quickly recovered and flipped to Murphy covering the plate, who tagged Loyd for the final out in the first.

In the bottom of the first inning, Hannah Miller led off with a single and moved to second base on a Laken Parks sacrifice bunt. Brooke Christian followed with a walk, but Carroll got Murphy to pop up to first basemen Ella Black in foul territory for the second out.

Altizer followed with a line drive double to the left center field gap to plate Miller and Christian for a 2-0 Chapmanville lead.

It would be all the run support that Murphy would need and the score remained 2-0 heading to the fourth inning when the game was halted for a lightening delay.

When action resumed, Murphy struck out the side in the top of the fourth and in the bottom of the fourth, Peyton Lusk led off with a solo homerun over the left center field fence to give the Lady Tigers a 3-0 lead.

Murphy retired 14 straight batters before issuing back-to-back walks to Loyd and Rylee McClellan with two outs in the sixth inning before getting Emeri Nelson to pop up in foul territory to first basemen Christian.

Carroll allowed three runs on five hits with five strikeouts, two walks and one hit batter in six innings for Winfield, who returns to the diamond Wednesday evening when they host Poca.

Christian and Mady Farley each had a double and Miller had one hit for the Lady Tigers.

Chapmanville will host county rival and Class AA No.1 Logan Tuesday afternoon at Ronnie "Mule" Ooten Field. The Lady Tigers defeated the Lady Wildcats 2-1 on April 1 at Bea Orr Field and will look to complete the season sweep with a third win over a top-ranked team.