FAIRHOPE, Alabama — Hoover's Marcy Harper fanned 16 Fairhope hitters and knocked a two-run homer over the left-center fence as the Buccaneers beat the host Pirates 4-0 in the Blue and Gold Invitational championship game on Saturday.

The teams played to a scoreless tie after regulation, but 6A No. 7 Hoover scored four in the top of the eighth to take the win. Harper got the win for Hoover, while Grey Adams struck out eight and took the loss for Fairhope.

"We just executed," Hoover head coach Jim Brown said. "You've got to give a lot of credit to (Adams), she did a great job. Most of the game we couldn't get going, couldn't get bunts down, couldn't move runners. In the last inning we just started executing and fortunately our pitching and defense kept us alive until that point."

Hoover scored on Kalee Sparks' RBI single, Harper's homerun and Carly Sewell's RBI double in the eighth.

Fairhope threatened with a runner at third and one out in the bottom of the seventh, but Harper struck out the next two batters to end the inning.

"We had two good teams with two good pitchers going after each other," Fairhope head coach Jonathan Heflin said. "That's the kind of game that you hate to see somebody lose, but that's the way it is. I thought Grey threw her heart out, she was seeing it well all day.

"Right there at the end we just couldn't get that one hit that we needed to push us over the edge. Just couldn't score that one run to get us the win. That's the mark of a really good pitcher."

Hoover and Fairhope finished second and third in Class 6A last year, and Heflin was pleased with how his team competed with the Bucs again this year.

"I'm real real proud of the way we played and the way we matched up with a good Hoover team. I think that's a really good sign for us going into the last half of the season."

Fairhope is off for spring break this week, then plays Reidland, Kentucky on April 2. Hoover will visit Bob Jones on Tuesday and plays at Oak Mountain on Thursday.