[9/1/04]Britanny Fuller’s running catch down the left-field line to open the game set the scene for what would follow.

Behind stellar defense and strong hitting, Warren Central hammered Vicksburg 10-0 in five innings at Lady Vikes Field on Tuesday.

Lauren Anderson paced the Lady Vikes at the plate with a 3-for-3 performance and three RBIs. Tiffany Fuller added three hits, and Amanda Doyle, Cookie Johnson and Brittany Fuller each had two RBIs. WC pitcher Saleda Montgomery (7-2) allowed one hit and retired the final 10 batters she faced for the win.

“Saleda did a real good job pitching to their batters,” WC coach Lucy Young said. “They’ve got some strong hitters, and she did well on what pitch she gave them. And the defense just backed her up. We told her to just let them hit the ball and let your defense play.”

The victory puts Warren Central (7-2, 2-0 Division 6-5A) comfortably ahead of both Vicksburg and Natchez in division play. But Young warns that the season is not over yet.

“Each of your games in the division means a lot, even the runs mean a lot,” she said, adding that ties are determined by run differential. “When Natchez comes here or when we go to Halls Ferry (Park), we’re just going to look at it as something we’ve got to have.”

Vicksburg (2-6, 0-1) played sloppy defense, committing nine errors, and couldn’t make consistent contact at the plate.

The Missy Gators beat Riverside and Yazoo City and stayed close with WC in Saturday’s Lady Vikes Invitational to claim the tournament title. WC defeated VHS 8-3 in the final game on Saturday.

VHS coach Kori Crutchfield thought she had the team turned in the right direction, but Tuesday’s loss had her baffled.

“I have no clue,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find out from them why they showed up a different team today. I really have no clue.”

With three division games remaining, Crutchfield said Vicksburg still has a good chance of reaching the playoffs.

“There’s still hope, there’s still a chance,” Crutchfield said. “We can come back and beat Warren Central when we play them again and beat Natchez, and that’ll put us in.”

JaWanda Bingham hit a two-out triple in the top of the first inning, but the Missy Gators couldn’t capitalize on their only opportunity with a runner in scoring position.

The Lady Vikes came out strong in the bottom frame.

After a pair of WC singles to start things off, Brittany Fuller brought in both runners with a triple to the left-field fence. Cookie Johnson blasted one over Bingham’s head and off her glove in left-center to bring in Fuller, and Anderson followed with an RBI single to give WC a 4-0 lead.

“I think we were a little bit more relaxed than we were on Saturday,” Anderson said. “We came out and hit the ball to start off with. The game on Saturday we didn’t hit all that well, we just got lucky with some of our hits.”

A pair of VHS errors in the second inning put runners on first and second for Doyle, who singled to bring the score to 6-0. After a Tiffany Fuller hit, Anderson had a two-out, two-run double to stake WC to an 8-0 advantage.

“It doesn’t put a lot of pressure on you to come out and hit to begin with,” Anderson said. “If you wait until the sixth inning, they may get ahead and you have to make a miraculous comeback.”

The Lady Vikes added another run in the fourth inning on a Cookie Johnson sacrifice fly. Candice Blazier then scored on an error in the bottom of the fifth to end the game by mercy rule.