BOONEVILLE, Miss. –  Northeast Mississippi Community College's sophomore pitcher Erin Dixson showed why she was the National Junior Colleges Athletic Association (NJCAA) Player of the Week just a month ago.

Dixson (9-4) limited Itawamba Community College to just three hits and struck out two as Northeast knocked off Itawamba 2-0 in the opening game of the North Division doubleheader in Fulton.

Itawamba (12-7-1, 6-2 in North Division) bounced back to take the nightcap 5-4 with the Lady Indians scoring all of their runs in the third inning. 

Dixson led Northeast (13-8-1, 7-3) to the two-run win in the opener from the mound while New Albany's Ellen Tarrant bashed around a pair of hits including a double and Corinth's Erin Frazier came through with an RBI double to give Dixson all the run support the Amherst, New York native would need.

Dixson threw to just four batters over the minimum (25) and induced the Lady Indians into 14 groundball outs while allowing just three hits all night.

Dixson, who carried a perfect game into the fifth inning against Mississippi Delta on March 16, stayed perfect through the first three frames against the Lady Indians.

Itawamba was able to get the first two batters on in the fourth but Dixson got Jessi Patterson to fly out to center and Kami Roberts to ground into an inning-ending double play to squash the threat. 

After the fourth, Dixson settled down and allowed just one hit over the last three innings and didn't allow a runner to reach third all night.

During her performance, Dixson produced four 1-2-3 innings, got the first two batters out in five of her seven innings pitched and got the leadoff batter out in all but the fourth.

In the nightcap, Itawamba ace Montana Hawkins improved to 6-1 as the Lady Indian matched Dixson's opening game performance.

Hawkins kept the Lady Tigers in check until the seventh inning as Itawamba picked up its sixth division win of the year.

While Dixson went an entire game in the opener, Northeast got to Hawkins in the seventh inning of the second contest and forced Itawamba head coach Andy Kirk to bring in Dani Taylor in the final frame albeit not before Northeast had scored four runs and had runners on first and second with two down.

Tarrant and Frazier got the seventh going for the Lady Tigers. Tarrant doubled to lead off the frame and a batter later, Frazier was hit by a pitch.

After back-to-back fielder's choices, Northeast was down to its final out but Bianca Chagolla made sure that the Lady Tigers did not go silently. Chagolla doubled to left field and scored Frazier and Gracie Michael. 

A trio of consecutive singles by Andrea Cutts, Dixson and Haleight Moffett kept the hit barrage going for the Lady Tigers.

Dixson chased home Chagolla while Moffett's single to center cut the game to one run with runners on first and second.

However, that would be as close as the Lady Tigers would get as Taylor got her only batter of the game to strikeout to end the threat.

After sitting a week to play Itawamba, Northeast will wait another week before its next games as the Lady Tigers travel to Clarksdale to take on Coahoma Community College on Wednesday, April 3. First pitch in the Lady Tiger-on-Lady Tiger North Division doubleheader is set for 1 p.m.