OWENSBORO — The No. 1 Greenwood softball team showed its nerves early in its return to the state tournament, but it showed its scary potential this morning.

Greenwood (41-0) scored eight runs in the first inning of its second-round game today against Notre Dame (29-8), breezing to a 13-0 win in five innings at the Rawlings/KHSAA Softball State Tournament at Jack C. Fisher Park.

“We were really loose and relaxed,” senior shortstop Emily Gravette said. “We were comfortable with our pitchers and our defense, and knowing we had all that out there led to us being comfortable at the plate as well.”

The win ties the Lady Gators with the 2011 state champion Allen County-Scottsville squad for most victories in a season in state history.

They’ll face Lone Oak, which eliminated GHS in the 2012 semifinals, at 3 p.m. today in the third round. If they win that game, they’ll return for the semifinals Saturday.

If they lose in the third round, they would play at 7 p.m. today in the loser’s bracket of the double-elimination tournament.

Junior pitcher Elizabeth Moss tossed one inning and struck out the side to earn the win this morning. Senior pitcher Brittany Graham struck out seven batters in four scoreless relief innings. Notre Dame had two hits.

The Lady Gators finished with 19 hits, led by Gravette, who went 4-for-5 with four RBIs and two runs scored.

Greenwood had seven players with multiple hits – including three apiece by junior center fielder Raley Slone and freshman second baseman Alexis Dean – and four players drove in multiple runs.

On Thursday night, Moss and GHS showed their nerves in the tournament’s opening round.

But after they got out of a hole – both literally and figuratively – they capitalized on five errors by No. 19 South Laurel to record a 7-1 victory.

“The nerves have got to come,” Graham said Thursday night. “It’s the first night of state, so you have to let the nerves go and go out there and play ball.”

Moss, who suffered a back injury in last year’s state semifinal run, walked the first two batters she faced Thursday.

But she found her groove after that, striking out 15 batters over seven innings while allowing four hits, two walks and an unearned run.

“I was very nervous,” Moss said. “There was a hole out on the pitcher’s mound that was bothering me, but all my teammates were good about kicking it around and getting it comfortable enough for me to settle down and have the defense work for me.”

Although South Laurel (29-7) was plagued by errors throughout the game, Greenwood committed the game’s first costly miscue.

After Moss walked two batters, junior catcher Aeron Smith dropped an easy pop-up in front of home plate with two outs in the bottom of the first inning that scored a Lady Cardinal run.

“It was a rough start,” Greenwood coach Penny Reece said. “It’s the kind of start you don’t anticipate. With the experience we talk about, they came out kind of nervous. This is the state tournament and these are kids, and I guess I need to expect it and ease up a little bit on them.

“Some of the goofy things we did, we looked like a deer in the headlights.”

GHS senior third baseman Angela Adkins started the top of the second with a walk and scored after two errors by South Laurel on a bunt by sophomore left fielder Katelyn Merritt.

SLHS committed two more errors in the fourth, but not before Graham plated Dean with an RBI single. Graham later scored on an error to make it 3-1.

“Scoring first puts pressure on the other team, but we scored our runs a lot on their boo-boos, and that’s what gets me,” Reece said. “I want us to win the game because we’re good enough. You take advantage of them, but it’s a much better feeling when they perform well.”

The run support seemed to calm Moss, who struck out the side in the bottom of the fourth inning. She recorded 10 of her 15 strikeouts in the final four innings.

The Lady Gators added three more runs in the fifth, including an RBI single by Merritt, who then scored on an error. Graham also added an RBI double with a long shot to left field.

“I definitely got more relaxed because they got more runs on the board, and there was a lot less pressure,” Moss said. “I was able to just throw my game and have more control.”

Greenwood capped its scoring in the seventh, when junior pinch runner Aly Parsons came home on a wild pitch.

The Lady Gators had 11 hits, including three apiece by Dean and Slone. Hagan Burns took the loss for South Laurel after allowing nine hits and six runs in 5 1/3 innings.

GHS 8 3 0 0 2 – 13 19 0

NDA 0 0 0 0 0 – 0 2 2

WP: Moss LP: Jones

GHS 0 1 0 2 3 0 1 – 7 11 2

SLHS 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 1 4 5

WP: Moss LP: Burns

— Zach Greenwell covers prep sports for the Bowling Green Daily News. Follow him at twitter.com/zach_greenwell or visit bgdailynews.com.