South East Stars closed in on a place at the Charlotte Edwards Cup finals day with a 20-run win over Group A rivals Southern Vipers.
A fourth win from five took them to 17 points and above the Vipers going into the final round of group games on Monday.
Central Sparks kept their hopes of reaching the knockout stages alive with a four-wicket win over Lightning.
The top three in Group B can all still qualify after Western Storm beat Northern Diamonds, to leapfrog them at the top, and third-placed Thunder tied with Sunrisers.
The group winner with the most points will go straight through to the final, at the Ageas Bowl on 5 September, which will be preceded by an eliminator between the other group winner and the best runner-up.
The top two in Group A faced off at Southampton where captain Bryony Smith gave Stars the perfect platform with 42 off just 25 balls and Alice Capsey struck eight fours in a 46-ball knock of 61 to help the visitors post 167-4 off their 20 overs.
Capsey then removed both Vipers openers cheaply as the hosts slumped to 56-5 and failed to recover, finishing 20 runs short despite 45 from Georgia Elwiss and a late cameo from Alice Monaghan (30 not out from 17 balls).
Central Sparks are three points behind Vipers after they were pushed all the way in beating winless Lightning at Worcester.
Abi Freeborn top-scored with 32 and Bethany Harmer made 26 from 16 as Lightning made 136-8.
Evelyn Jones (71) fell in the 19th over to Sonia Odedra who then removed Emily Arlott first ball, but Issy Wong hit a four off the penultimate ball of the match to complete a four-wicket win.
There was an even tighter finish in Group B as Sunrisers’ Jo Gardner scrambled a single off the last ball to secure a tie with Thunder at Northampton.
Georgie Boyce (31) and Eleanor Threlkeld (28) top-scored as Emily Thorpe (2-17) helped restrict Thunder to 124-5.
The hosts needed just nine runs to win from the last two overs, but Kate Cross (2-20) bowled Cordelia Griffith (63) in the penultimate over, and Hannah Jones then conceded just one run from the final three balls to earn the tie.
Western Storm went top of the group after skipper Sophie Luff (60 not out) guided them to a thrilling four-wicket win over second-placed Diamonds with three balls to spare in a low-scoring match at Chester-le-Street.
Diamonds earlier posted what had looked a meagre 110-9, with top contributions from Alex MacDonald (22) and Jenny Gunn (18).
