One brilliant inning pulled the Vicksburg Cannons out of their doldrums, salvaged a victory, and put them in the driver’s seat at the 9-year-olds’ Governor’s Cup.

The Cannons scored nine runs in the bottom of the third inning Friday to erase a four-run deficit, and beat the Clinton Arrows 11-6 in the pool play opener for both teams.

Walker Zepponi and Shayne Reagan had two hits apiece for the Cannons, while Mac Vroman and Landon Azlin each had an RBI single in the third inning.

The winning rally turned the Cannons’ outlook for the rest of the tournament around 180 degrees in a matter of minutes. Instead of having to play as many as three games today, they could be done for the day before lunch.

If the Cannons beat the Advance Sports Braves in their next pool play game today at 8 a.m., they’ll be in line to earn the No. 1 seed for the elimination round. That comes with a bye into the semifinals, which means the Cannons wouldn’t have to play again until Sunday morning. The No. 2 seed will play at 6 tonight.

The elimination-round seeding is determined by overall record first, then head-to-head matchups and runs allowed.

“We got one win under us, and I’d like to win the next one,” Cannons coach Charles Orman said. “If you get the No. 1 seed you don’t play until Sunday, so you can kind of skip a game. Then you play the winner of the fourth and fifth seed, so you have a little advantage.”

The Arrows used a series of wild pitches, walks and errors to build a 6-2 lead after two innings Friday night. They only had two hits, both in the first inning. One was a leadoff single by Troy Hambright, the other an RBI single by John David Gunn.

The Cannons’ fortunes turned, however, on what should have been the second out of the third inning. Cooper Orman swung and missed at strike three, but the ball got by Clinton’s catcher. The throw to first was off the mark, Orman ended up at second base and then scored on a single by Zepponi to cut it to 6-3.

Reagan followed with another base hit and moved up to second on the throw to the infield. Zepponi scored on a wild pitch and Reagan came in right behind him from second to make it a one-run game.

Spencer Azlin then reached on an error and scored the tying run on a passed ball, Brayden Robinson followed with a triple and scored on a wild pitch to make it 7-6, and the Cannons were set. They added four more runs before the 1 hour, 20 minute time limit expired with them still batting.

In all, the Cannons sent 11 hitters to the plate in the inning.

“The leadoff batter got on base and it just happened after that. Other than that, I don’t know,” Charles Orman said with a laugh. “I’m proud of them. It’s the first time we’ve been down like that and the boys actually came back and won.”