[7/25/04]The Vicksburg Athletics redeemed themselves for their tough loss Friday night with a solid 8-4 victory over Natchez on Saturday in the second round of the Governor’s Cup.

“We started things off pretty bad yesterday,” Vicksburg coach Jody Gatling said. “But today, our pitching was more on, our batting was more on, and our defense was more on. We just did better all-around, and we got a win out of it.”

The good feelings didn’t last long, though. The A’s were eliminated from the tournament later on Saturday when Madison rallied for seven runs in the fifth inning and claimed an 8-6 win.

Vicksburg, which was the runner-up in last year’s 9-10-year-olds’ Governor’s Cup, finished fourth in the 11-year-olds’ division this year.

“There are some real good teams in this league,” Gatling said. “It’s good to play them win or lose, it makes the team better.”

It started off looking like an easy game for the A’s against Natchez. Gonzales’ dominating pitching sat Natchez down 1-2-3 in the first, but he had to leave the game after feeling faint in the second.

Montana McDaniel relieved Gonzales with one out and two on. He got the last two outs on a double play, but not before Natchez took a 3-0 lead.

The first batter walked, and then Corey Emanuel scored Ryan Goddard and Hunter Hatcher with a two-bagger. Heath White followed Emanuel with another double to score Nick Partridge.

After the three-run second, Scottie Peavey hit a solo home run in the third. Natchez’s bats ran out of gas after that, however, as McDaniel shut them down the rest of the game. He allowed just one hit in each of the last two innings.

7-8-year-olds

Clarksdale 9, Culkin 4

Clarksdale scored six runs in the top of the sixth to beat the Culkin Rangers.

Willie Thomas tripled and scored a run and Ben Welp doubled for Culkin. Patrick Murphy and Sam Osborne also had two hits apiece for the Rangers.

Madison Vipers 11, Culkin 0

Madison jumped on top with five runs in the first inning and never looked back in eliminating the Culkin Rangers from the tournament.

9-10-year-olds

Madison 15, V’burg Gators 8

Jonah Masterson went 2-for-2 with a double and two runs scored, but Madison knocked Vicksburg out of championship contention.

Carrollton rolls over Athletics

[7/24/04]The last time the Carrollton 11-year-olds came to Halls Ferry Park, they walked away with a Governor’s Cup championship. After their impressive display on Friday, it looks like they might have to clear some more space in their trophy case.

Carrollton, a team from the New Orleans area, got three innings of one-hit ball from Zach Larner, a solo home run from Chris Riess, and a pair of five-run innings to beat the Vicksburg A’s 12-1 in the opening game of the 11-year-olds’ Governor’s Cup.

It was a rematch of last year’s 9-10-year-olds’ championship game, which Carrollton won 5-2. This time, it wasn’t nearly as close. The A’s committed five errors three of them in the second inning and walked six Carrollton batters in three innings.

Carrollton batted around in both the second and third innings, scoring five runs in each frame. In the second inning, Carrollton had only two hits.

“Our pitchers struggled, we made some errors, and if you make errors in the wrong spot it’ll kill you. They broke our back and we couldn’t come back,” Vicksburg coach Jody Gatling said. “The heat had something to do with it, but shoot, their team was hot too.”

After the A’s left runners on first and third in the top of the first, Carrollton jumped on top with a pair of runs in the bottom of the inning. Max Wheelock led off with a double and scored on Aiden Breaux’s single, and Breaux scored on an error.

Riess led off the bottom of the second with his homer to left to make it 3-0, and Carrollton was off and running. It took advantage of three walks and the three Vicksburg errors to score four more runs. Cooper Barnett’s RBI single was Carrollton’s only other hit in the rally.

“The bats came alive. We did a good job of knowing the strike zone and hitting strikes, and making the pitchers for Vicksburg bring it across the plate instead of hitting their pitch,” Carrollton coach Donald McKay said.

Carrollton added five more runs in the third, with Odell Beckham’s two-run single keying the surge, and won by the 10-run mercy rule.

Vicksburg scored its only run in the top of the fourth when Jared Tompkins walked, stole second, went to third on Will Hedgepeth’s two-out single, and came home on a balk.