Both Vicksburg Gators coach Jamie Creel and Thunder coach Trey Clark liked the experience of playing in this week’s 16-year-olds’ Babe Ruth Southwest Regional enough to want to do it again next summer.

&#8220This was a very good experience and we met a lot of good people from other states,” said Clark, whose team finished fifth in the eight-team tournament that concluded Tuesday with Mid-County, Texas, taking home the regional title and earning a berth to the Babe Ruth World Series in Bentonville, Ark.

&#8220Not too many kids get to play in something like this with a chance to go to a world series. I can see us having another team next year and try again,” Clark said.

Creel, whose Gators won three straight elimination games including a 4-1 win Sunday over the Thunder, agreed that a Babe Ruth tournament could be a part of his summer program for his younger players.

&#8220Absolutely, we’d like to do this again. This was an awesome deal for us. I was really proud of the way the Vicksburg High kids and the kids from Warren Central came together and played as one,” Creel said. &#8220I think it can work again next year, but I think we need to start it earlier. Putting a team together in just a week kind of showed up at times with the way we played, but I definitely want to do it again.”

Vicksburg went 3-2 in the tournament, beating Central Mississippi, the Thunder and West Arkanas. Both losses came against the two Texas teams.

&#8220We competed well against the two teams from Texas even though they are drawing kids from multiple counties and sometimes as many as eight different schools,” Creel said.

Getting stuck having to play the eventual regional champs Mid-County, didn’t help either.

&#8220Vicksburg had a very good team and getting that win Friday kept us out of the losers’ bracket while it made it tough on them and they eventually ran out of pitching,” Mid-County coach Jimmy Collins said after his team defeated Tri-County 5-1 in Tuesday’s championship game.