EVENSVILLE, Tenn. — Apparently the ghosts of Lady Trojans past weren’t going to allow Soddy-Daisy’s softball season to come to an end Monday.

Despite graduating last spring a large majority of the high school players who led runs to four consecutive Class AAA finals with championships in the last two, Soddy-Daisy looked like a team of callous veterans in disposing of District 5 champion Rhea County 4-0 in a Region 3 semifinal.

Soddy-Daisy (25-12-1) will travel to Ooltewah (40-3-1) for Wednesday’s title game at 7 p.m. That winner will host a sectional Friday, while the losing team will travel.

Soddy-Daisy won the first regular-season game against Ooltewah, continuing a run of dominance that dated to 2000. The Lady Owls have won the last three meetings, including the winners-bracket final and final of last week’s district tournament at Ooltewah.

“The kids came out knowing how really, really important this game was,” Soddy-Daisy coach Clifford Kirk said. “You win this ballgame, you get to play two more. They wanted to keep playing. We weren’t real happy with the way we lost at Ooltewah. We had a good opportunity to win the ballgame and didn’t do it — either one, for that matter.”

Rhea County knocked Soddy-Daisy out of its own tournament on March 22. The Lady Golden Eagles didn’t knock much of anything Monday off Alesha Buckner. She totaled 13 strikeouts.

Buckner took a no-hitter into the seventh, then gave up a one-out double to Charlie McCuistion. Buckner walked the first batter and did not allow another, although she hit one with two out in the second. Two others reached on errors.

“I thought Buckner did a really good job,” Kirk said. “They didn’t see her the first time we played. We gave her some time off in the last week, thinking it would help her be stronger. We practiced; she just rested.”

The most experienced returning Lady Trojan is Jena Hale, author of the winning single in last year’s state final. She looked the part again, singling in the second inning for the first run and singling and scoring a run on Brooke Ward’s double in the fifth.

Whitney Johnson added a two-RBI single in the sixth. All the runs scored with two outs.

“They’ve been there before, from their head coach right on down to the players,” Rhea County first-year coach Brittany Hayes said. “They were confident and experienced, and it showed. As a team they were committed to moving baserunners with bunts. They hit them around and got hits when they needed to.”

The Lady Golden Eagles ended up 25-8-1, including winning their first district title.

“I can’t say enough about the character of these young ladies,” Hayes said. “They’ve worked on their own this year, from 1 all the way down to 15. They had a great year. They’ve done things at Rhea County that no one else has done. It’s all on them.”

n Ooltewah 10, Bradley Central 0: At Ooltewah in the other semifinal, Holly Thomas pitched a no-hitter with no walks and had six strikeouts in the six-inning game. The Lady Owls made two errors.

Kaitlin Neil had a double for the first two runs. Bri Shoemake and Sara Kelley followed by sandwiching run-scoring doubles around Lexie Whittenburg’s single, and Ooltewah led 4-0 after three innings. Neil chipped in with a two-run single during the Lady Owls’ clinching five-run sixth.

Kristin Whitmire paced an 11-hit attack with three. Two were doubles and she scored twice.