All Bartow White All-Stars coach Mike Kilgo asked his team to do was continue to battle.

And while Bartow White couldn't muster more than a hit off of Clayton County pitcher Lee Lee Bailie in its elimination game Saturday, Kilgo sounded like a proud papa in his postgame speech.

"We never quit. ... I asked y'all in the first (district) game (with the Bartow Blue All-Stars) to show me some heart," he said following Bartow White's 6-1 loss to the Lady Braves in the Georgia Recreation and Parks Association Class A Mite Girls Fastpitch Softball state tournament.

"We went down battling ... that's all I've asked of you. ... Walk off this field ... with your head held high."

Clayton County plated four runs in the first inning, including Bailie's RBI single over Bartow's second baseman and Mya Hill's RBI triple to the right field fence.

Bartow White recorded its only hit of the game in the bottom of the first when Hope Elrod hit a bloop double near the left field line.

Elrod reached third base and nearly scored on Bailie's wild pitch, but Hill recovered the ball quickly after it hit the fence and tagged Elrod out.

The Braves escaped the inning.

"We had opportunities early in the ball game that we just didn't capitalize on," Kilgo said of Bartow White's inability to respond to the Lady Braves fast start.

Bartow White scored its only run in the second inning when Hannah Elrod scored on a passed ball.

Already with two outs, however, Bartow couldn't add any more runs.

Clayton County added two more runs -- in the third and fifth -- on errors.

Bailie picked up the win for the Lady Braves, striking out 13 in five innings. She gave up just one hit and walked five.

"She threw it hard. She threw it well. She threw strikes," Kilgo said of Bailie. He told his team afterward that it hadn't faced a faster pitcher besides Bartow Blue's Lilly Jordan.

Jordan and her teammates put Bartow White in the losers' bracket with a 7-4 win in the first game of the day.

Bartow Blue scored two runs -- on a wild pitch and a sacrifice grounder by Aliza Baker -- to take a 2-0 first inning lead against Bartow White.

In the second inning, Ellie Gillis' RBI single put Bartow Blue up, 3-0.

By the middle of the third inning, the Blue all-stars led 7-0, courtesy of a two-run double by Jordan and an RBI bunt by Loren Harris. The team's other run in the top of third came on a passed ball.

Despite the seven-run deficit, the Bartow White All-Stars rallied as Hope Elrod hit an RBI single to left field, which allowed another run to come in after a Bartow Blue error.

In the fifth inning, Bartow White's Brighton McCollum, who doubled to lead off the inning, scored on an error, and Elrod, who reached base on the earlier error, scored on a wild pitch following her advancement to second and third base on a steal and wild pitch, respectively.

Jordan then retired the final three Bartow White batters on strikeouts to end the game, which had already reached its one-hour, 40-minute time limit.

McCollum finished 2-for-3 with a double, Hope Elrod went 2-for-3 with an RBI and Tara Mathis went 1-for-2.

Elrod pitched two innings, giving up no runs, hitting a batter and striking out six. Mathis gave up six earned runs, three hits and seven walks in three innings; she struck out five and hit a batter.

"I couldn't ask for anything else," Kilgo said of Elrod, who also pitched two innings against Clayton County, giving up no earned runs, one hit and two walks while striking out five.

"At all times, (she is) just waiting for her number to be called," he continued. "Everytime her number was called, she pitched well."

Kilgo seemed most pleased with how his team fared against Bartow Blue, who beat the White all-stars, 9-0, in the GRPA District 5 Mite Girls Fastpitch Softball tournament.

"I felt like we laid down in that first game in district," he said. "If we were gonna lose, we were gonna go down battling."

Bartow White finished third in the state tournament with its performance.