jump back into division play tonight

[3/18/03]The gray, overcast skies signaled an end to the fun and games of spring break on Monday for Warren Central and Vicksburg. Tonight, they go back to work.

The Vikings and Gators begin their crucial second round of division play this week, with WC hosting Clinton at 7 tonight and VHS traveling to Forest Hill at 6 p.m. WC and VHS will play each other on Friday at Viking Field.

With both teams at 1-1 in the division, and Vicksburg holding a 1-0 edge on WC in their season series, this week’s games will go a long way toward determining which, if either, team can stake a claim to one of Division 4-5A’s two playoff spots. Clinton is 2-0, and can separate from the pack with a win over WC, while Forest Hill is 0-2 in division play.

The teams in Division 4-5A play each other three times apiece, so there’s still time to recover from a loss here or there. Starting with Friday’s game, however, time gets short.

“I don’t think it’s a do-or-die ballgame. I think that starts with (Vicksburg),” WC coach Randy Broome said of the Vikings’ game against Clinton. “Win or lose (tonight), we’ve got to take care of business starting with the next round.”

While tonight’s division games are big for each team, neither figures to be as important as Friday’s meeting between WC (6-6) and VHS (6-5). The Gators won 6-5 in their first clash this season, and can gain a huge tiebreaker advantage by beating the Vikings on their home field.

“That would be a huge advantage. We just need to come out and play solid baseball, and if we do a lot of the little things right we’ll be OK,” VHS coach Jamie Creel said. “I just hope the weather will hold off for us this week and allow us to get these games in. We certainly don’t want to get into a deal where we’re playing three or four district games a week and trying to catch up.”

Spring break wasn’t all sun and fun for either WC or VHS. Warren Central played five games last week, while Vicksburg played six. Each team got something different out of their work.

WC went 4-1 and swept three games at the McComb tournament. Including a 20-6 rout of Forest Hill on March 7, the first night of spring break, the Vikings have scored 67 runs in their last six games. The offensive explosion helped erase the bad taste of a 1-5 start.

“We played some pretty good baseball, and beat some pretty good teams,” Broome said. “I think the biggest key for us was we hit the baseball and didn’t make any errors.”

For Vicksburg, spring break was more of a proving ground. The Gators played four ranked Mississippi teams, as well as a very good Houston, Tenn., team, and took some lumps early.

VHS lost five straight, a streak that included tough losses to three ranked teams by a total of five runs. The Gators bounced back with a win over Olive Branch in the final game of the Madison Central tournament, and upset No. 3 Petal on Saturday to head into this week’s division games on a high note.

“We started a stretch there where every team we played was a ranked opponent, or will be ranked at some point in time,” Creel said. “It really battle-tested our guys to see where we stack up, and we found out that we can play with anybody on any given day.”

Porters Chapel Academy’s game against defending Academy-A state champion Deer Creek was rained out Monday, creating a shuffle of the Eagles’ schedule.

The game was rescheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m. at PCA, and Thursday’s home game against Briarfield was moved to 4 p.m. The Eagles (7-2) will travel to face Humphreys tonight at 6.

St. Aloysius also returns to division play today when it travels to face Enterprise-Lincoln at 5 p.m. The Flashes are coming off a rough showing at the Capital Classic, where they lost two of three games.