Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Ashland Craft and Megan Rose rehearse with Miley Cyrus for their battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Ashland Craft says she’s always nervous before a performance. It just doesn’t show after years of performing.

She might have been ever more so had she known the situation she and Megan Rose were walking into during the battle round on The Voice.

By the time Ashland and Megan took the stage for their Team Miley Cyrus country showdown, only one steal remained.

No matter how well they performed, Adam Levine and Jennifer Hudson couldn’t steal them, increasing the likelihood the singer Miley didn’t pick as the winner would be eliminated.

Fortunately, the lone steal remaining belonged to Blake Shelton.

And their performance of Waylon Jennings’ “Good Hearted Woman” was so good, it enticed him to use that steal on Megan after Ashland was declared the winner.

“I had no idea,” Megan said of the steal situation. “I thought I was going home. I was like, ‘All right, bye everyone.'”

Ashland figured to be the slight favorite heading into the battle. She’d turned three chairs in the blind auditions. Her song from that round — “You Are My Sunshine” — was the best performing blind audition cover on iTunes. Again during Tuesday’s show, Miley indicated she considers Ashland a front-runner in the competition.

But the 21-year-old from Piedmont, S.C., said the goal from the start was to put on a battle round performance so good that both singers would advance to the knockout round.

“We just practiced really, really, really hard anytime we could,” Ashland said. “And I think that kind of made the situation a little more comfortable for the both of us because we knew the song like the back of our hand at that point.

“And so we just went out there, said we were going to have fun and that was such a fun performance because we got to bring back an older country song in a newer, more modern way.”

Miley complimented both singers on their performance, but opted to advance Ashland.

Megan was saying her goodbyes to the coaches when Blake suddenly pushed his button, indicating he was stealing Megan for his team.

We didn’t get to hear what Blake told Megan afterward; the show cut to commercial. But Megan, 20, of San Ramon, Calif.. filled in Voice Views on what we missed.

“Blake was like, ‘Megan, where did you come from?’ … ‘Did you sneak on to the show?’ He was really funny and then Miley reminded him that his team was full during my blind audition and that he wasn’t able to press his button.

“But he was very complimentary and he mentioned the fact that Ashland is just a powerhouse and has this amazing, fantastic voice and that I kind of stepped up my game and I was able to actually keep up with her, which meant a lot to me because Ashland, I look up to a lot. So having Blake Shelton say that I was able to keep up with her was awesome.”

The knockout rounds begin Monday on The Voice.

Ashland Craft and Megan Rose perform during the battle round during Season 13 of The Voice. (NBC Photo)