Madison Central socks VHS, stays perfect in division|[03/31/07]
Published 12:00 am Saturday, March 31, 2007
Vicksburg’s modest five-game winning streak ended Friday at the hand of a Madison Central club on a much longer roll.
The fourth-ranked Jaguars (23-2, 9-0 Division 3-5A) made it 22 straight with the 11-4 win over the Gators at Bazinsky Field. The top seven batters in the Jaguars’ lineup all had two hits apiece which was enough to leave MC coach Gregg Perry pretty optimistic about his team’s chances at going back to the Class 5A finals.
“This team has got a shot,” Perry said. “When we pitch well and play defense, we should win most of the time because we are going to hit.
“We needed some lipstick there in the first inning, because our defense got ugly,” added Perry, whose team made three straight errors to begin the bottom of the first. “But Logan (Hale) settled down and we backed him up with some runs.”
The first inning and a half saw both teams combine for six errors as the Jaguars managed a 5-3 lead.
Hale, now 6-0 on the season, found his groove, retiring 11 straight Gators until he hit Ole Miss signee Tyler Wells with a pitch in the fifth inning. By then the Jaguars were ahead 10-3.
The hitting barrage against VHS starter Andrew Brown began in the fourth when Brian Higbee, Spencer Boothe and Michael Rutland all delivered two-out singles to produce a run to make it 6-3.
A four-run fifth sealed it for the Jaguars. Ben Hodge led off with a solo home run and Boothe’s triple capped the rally.
Vicksburg (13-8, 5-3) finally got something going in the bottom of the seventh from the bottom three in the order. Judd Mims and Tanner Woodson both reached on hits to right, just the third and fourth hits against Hale.
Wells brought Mims in with a deep fly ball to left-center to make it 11-4. Hale then got a pair of infield outs to end the contest.
The end result left VHS coach Jamie Creel impressed with the Jaguars.
“They are solid because they can put the ball in play and they can hit for some power. They don’t have the murderers’ row like they had with DeMoney and Parks, but they’ve shown they can definitely reload,” Creel said.
Despite the loss, the Gators are assured a playoff berth after beating Greenville on Tuesday. Creel is going with a younger lineup and had sophomore Ryan Ferrington at shortstop.
“We’ve implemented some sophomores and juniors in the lineup and we’re getting better,” Creel said. “We had a little miscommunciation with one of them on a play, had we made, it would’ve scratched away their first four runs.”
Warren Central 16, Greenville 7
The Vikings (5-16, 3-5 Division 3-5A) scored in every inning, including four-run innings in the second and seventh, to trounce Greenville-Weston.
Keaton Sanders had four hits and Harry Ferguson belted three as Warren Central outhit Greenville 12-6. Sean Elliott had two hits and Matt Traxler hit two doubles.
Kyle Calhoun won his first game of the year, pitching six innings and striking out 13. Heath Carroll worked an inning of spotless relief.
The Vikings are scheduled to play Brandon today at 11 a.m., then Northwest Rankin at 4 p.m. at Viking Field.