[08/24/01] Greenville put a late scare in Vicksburg, but the Missy Gators held on to win, 6-3, on Thursday.

Viola Howard’s three-run double in the fourth inning was the biggest hit of the day for Vicksburg (3-2). Winning pitcher Dayna Nugent went 3-for-4 and drove in the final run in the sixth inning. She also struck out the final two batters after the first three Honey Bees of the seventh inning got hits.

Trailing 6-1, LaToya Cross had a run-scoring double and Markede Washington followed with an RBI single to make it a three-run game before Nugent got out of it.

“I’m upset that we let them back in it, but I also like that we worked our way out of it,” first-year VHS coach Jennifer Wilkerson said. “They kept their cool and did that.”

Brandi Parker went 2-for-4 and Katie Jenkins had an RBI infield single for VHS, which had 10 hits and took advantage of five walks and three errors. Greenville had six hits and three errors.

“I saw some improvement since our last game,” Wilkerson said, referring to an 8-3 loss to Madison Central on Tuesday. “Our infield did a better job of staying down on the ball.

“We still need to work on our hitting. We’ve just got to come up on the ball.”

VHS had weak groundouts to end the second, fifth and sixth innings with runners in scoring position.

But Howard came through after Kelli Outz reached base on a fielder’s choice, Lauren Johnson got a pinch-hit single and Parker reached on a blooper to left field to load the bases. Howard ripped the ball deep to center but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple.

“We’re starting to come together,” Wilkerson said. “We’ve just got to get some consistency going.

“We’re getting better.”