HOUSTON - For a high school softball first-round playoff series, it doesn't get any better than the Tishomingo County-Houston series.

All three games were decided in the last at-bat and all three games were won by the home team. Houston (23-3) was the one, however, to advance to face Kosciusko in the second round, as it won both Games 2 and 3 at its place on Tuesday night.

Houston pitcher Haley Gravat delivered a two-run single to left in the bottom of the seventh to win Game 2, 3-2, and it was Shelby Whitt, who hits behind Gravat, providing the game-winning base knock to left to give the Lady Toppers a 5-4 come-from-behind, series-clinching Game 3 win.

"I think all three games - Games 1, 2 and 3 - every play counted, every hit counted, every out counted," said Tishomingo County coach Malcolm Brown, whose team finished its 2010 campaign at 23-7. "It's just two good teams, and you hate to see a team lose.

"We just happened to be the team that comes up on the short end of the stick. Houston's got a great team."

Although it was a great series, Games 2 and 3 were marred with errors. The two teams accounted for nine errors in Game 1 - five for Tishomingo County and four for Houston.

In Game 3, it was Houston overcoming six errors - none bigger than the two made in the top of the seventh, that led to the Lady Braves' scoring twice to pull ahead 4-2.

The Lady Braves committed three errors themselves that led to three runs.

"They bunted the ball twice and we dropped two balls at first base which of course would have been two outs," Brown said.

And while Tishomingo County was making errors in the field, Houston didn't help itself out on the base paths, either. Chelsea Gates was picked off halfway down the third baseline, when she tried to score after reaching third on one of those dropped balls at first base, with no outs in the inning

Fortunately for the Lady Toppers, Gravat followed with a base hit to right to tie the game at 4-all and Whitt provided the game-winning heroics.

"Our game plan was to come in and to run the bases aggressively, try to steal like we did early in that first game (Game 2) and see how it would work out, because we didn't do that at Tishomingo County (in Game 1)," said Houston head coach Keith Jernigan, who took the blame for a couple of those bad base-running decisions.

"We've got the speed, that if we get the right jump, we ought to get there."