By ROB TATE ~ Sports Writer

ELLSINORE -- Carlee Vancil tied a state record for strikeouts in a 10-inning game as the Twin Rivers senior dueled with East Carter's Courtney Newman for an epic 1-0 win Thursday.

Vancil fanned 25 hitters and threw a no-hitter as the Lady Royals (1-1) escaped over rival East Carter (1-2).

As impressive of a performance Vancil had, she was nearly outdone by her counterpart who also went the distance, striking out 20.

Even though the game goes into the loss column for East Carter, head coach Angie Bowman told her team it deserved the win just as much as Twin Rivers.

"That's exactly what I told the girls afterwards," Bowman said. "It doesn't matter what that score was in my book, you guys won. They had a lot of heart, they never gave up through 10 innings, they never stopped and they were always enthusiastic. Even my bench -- they were there through the whole game."

It can't get much better, though, than the performance Vancil gave on the rubber. After walking East Carter's leadoff hitter, Bethany LeGrand, in the top of the first inning, Vancil promptley sent down 11 straight and 13 of the next 15 batters down via the strikeout. Vancil went on to fan 12 Lady Redbirds over the next seven innings, including the last six batters she saw the ninth and 10th innings.

Vancil was dumbfounded when she found how many batters she had struck out afterwards.

"Are you serious?" Vancil said. "Wow! Twenty-five is my tops, that amazes me. I don't even think about things like that, I just go out there and throw."

Lauren Delaney of Helias also fanned 25 in a 10-inning game in 2005 while her 11 straight ranks tied for eighth best in a single game.

After Vancil received no run support the entire game, Twin Rivers catcher Kelsey Snider finally put the game-winning run on the board with a line drive that sailed over East Carter left fielder Tiffany Baker's head in the top of the 10th. Snider turned on the wheels and motored around second base while Baker retrieved the ball and fired it into her cut-off. Twin Rivers head coach Rob Brown aggressively sent Snider home, and she slid in safely as the catcher misplayed the throw.

"I was ecstatic," Vancil said of the eventual game-winning hit by Snider. "Especially when she was coming around, I was screaming."

Brown remarked on how he likes his teams to be aggressive in situations such as that. The batter right before Snider, Chelsea Crain, was caught stealing on a call made by Brown.

"I was thinking 'Great, Chelsea would have scored if hadn't tried getting her in scoring position,'" Brown said. "I'm big on being aggressive on the basepaths. I guarantee that's one of the first things I said at the first practice. Somebody had to score, it might as well been us."

The win Thursday was Twin Rivers' first of the season after a setback earlier in the week against Saxony Lutheran. Vancil pitched in that game as well and struck out nine.

The win also marked the second time since East Carter upset Twin Rivers in the district finals last fall. Since that game, Twin Rivers has eliminated East Carter in the Ozark Foothills Conference tournament last spring and now have won a great pitchers' duel Thursday.

"We always want to beat them," Vancil said. "I think since that loss to them, they have kind of been a team we want to beat besides Naylor."

Vancil thought pretty highly of her counterpart in Newman on the afternoon.

"When she was warming up I was thinking she was pretty quick," Vancil said of the sophomore. "I hadn't seen her before."

East Carter will have to take the loss but ultimately can feel they've improved throughout the first week of the season despite the setback against the Lady Royals. The Lady Redbirds opened the season with a sloppy loss against Kelly this past Monday, but got a win Tuesday over East Prairie and a close one against a solid Twin Rivers team on Thursday.

"I think we had some first-game jitters," Bowman said. "We had few people that were out of position and some in new positions. In the fall, you don't have a lot of time to practice, especially with the new kids coming in. There's no time to practice things and learn everything in the games."