FLOWOOD — It’s been an uneven first couple of weeks for the Warren Central baseball Vikings.

They’ve had games where errors cost them, games where they’ve blown leads, and games where they just generally did not play very well. For a talented team with state championship aspirations, it was not the most encouraging start.

At last, it looks like they’re starting to work through the kinks and turn a corner.

Wesley Ricks homered for the second game in a row, Vantrel Reed hit an RBI single and pitched 4 2/3 effective innings, and the Vikings beat Alabama powerhouse Hillcrest 4-3 on Friday at the Mid-Mississippi Classic.

Warren Central (3-3) has won three of its last four games, and its first two in this tournament. It will play UMS Wright, another strong Alabama team, in its final game Saturday at 3 p.m. at Northwest Rankin High School.

Warren Central beat Calera (Ala.) 9-7 on Thursday in its first game at the Mid-Mississippi Classic.

“We’ve never been this highly touted and the kids were putting too much pressure on themselves. Instead of playing the game, they were trying to do too much,” Warren Central coach Conner Douglas said. “We talked about it and told them to relax and play the game like they’ve been doing their whole life. There’s no sense adding pressure to a game that’s a game of failure. We relaxed some and are starting to play good baseball.”

One thing helping Warren Central’s turnaround has been a steadier defense. In their three losses, the Vikings committed 13 errors. In the three wins, they’ve only had three.

“More practice, more ground balls, more getting on our butts. We play a little game with it. You miss one, it’s negative one. The man with the most points wins it all. We make everything a competition,” catcher Caleb Sterling said.

They had one error against Hillcrest, and also turned a key double play in the fifth inning to get out of a tight jam. With the bases loaded and one out, Haden Hall hit a sharp one-hopper to third baseman Alan Kivett. Kivett threw home for the force out, and Sterling quickly turned and fired to first to double up Hall and end the inning.

The double play maintained a 3-1 lead for Warren Central and a cushion they needed. Hillcrest scored runs in the sixth inning on an RBI double by Walt Bailey, and in the seventh on a solo home run by John Cade Tunnell to pull within a run at 4-3. Hillcrest also put the tying run on base with two outs in the seventh, but WC reliever Hank Holdiness got a ground ball out to end the game.

“That was huge. That probably determined the game,” Sterling said of the double play. “I knew as soon as I caught that ball it was a double play.”

The solid defense picked up the slack for an offense that was more unlucky than ineffective. The Vikings hit into two double plays — one on a line drive, another when a runner tried to go from first to third on a ground out — and had a runner thrown out at home trying to score from second on a single. Several batters also hit line drives right at fielders with runners on base.

“A couple of the balls we had, we made good swings on and the ball went right at them. That’s part of baseball,” Douglas said. “We’ve got to get those timely hits. However you can have them, we’ve got to find a way to get the runs in and bust the game open because we had a chance several times.”

Although they misfired in a few spots, the Vikings did pick up a couple of runs with some alert base running.

In the fourth inning, Chase Graham hustled home from third on a bobbled pickoff throw to first. In the sixth, Sean Daily reached on a dropped third strike and eventually scored when Hillcrest third baseman Mark Patterson dropped a pop up that would have been the third out.

Daily’s run put Warren Central ahead 4-2 and turned out to be the difference in the game.
Ricks led off the bottom of the first with a home run and Reed had an RBI single in the third inning for Warren Central’s other two runs. The Vikings only had four hits.

“We’ve played well the last two nights. The ball didn’t fall our way tonight, but we’re doing the little things right,” Douglas said. “It’s baseball. They’ve got guys out there and they’re making plays. We’ll continue to take hacks and let the ball fall.”