Opening day for the newly merged Vicksburg-Warren Athletic Association will roll into a second day as all of the newly formed league teams are expected to see action.

The new city-county baseball league, which came about after a merger of the Vicksburg Baseball Association and the Culkin Athletic Association, will open its new season on Friday at Halls Ferry Park.

“We encourage everyone to come out to the park on Friday night, April 4, for opening day of our new league,” said VWAA League vice president David McHan. “Our goal is for every league team to play its first game during the opening weekend, which will compose of games on both Friday night and Saturday.”

Players, coaches, parents and fans will be treated to special events, including a fireworks display after the opening games and free hot dogs all weekend for the players.

“We’ll need to wait until dark, so it’ll be after the first games,” said VWAA supporter and Aquila Group representative Ricky Mitchell. “This is phenomeal thing for the City of Vicksburg and Warren County for these leagues to merge. We are looking to having a special evening.”

McHan said the new league has been a success with increased registrations.

“We had 590 kids in our program last year with the VBA. With Culkin coming in, we’ve added another 150 kids. That’s roughly 10 more teams. We expect to have 60 teams and maybe a few more by the time of opening day,” McHan said.

One of the key changes was to set up the new leagues by age class. Last year, kids were divided in two-year increments of 9-10s, 11-12s and 7-8s playing in separate leagues based on their competitiveness.

“Last year we divided the age groups into either a Civic or Industrial League. The Industrial League was more conpetitive and many of the travel teams competed it in it. The Civic League was more of prep league.

“What we found was it was hard for our 9-year-olds to face a dominant 10-year-old pitcher. That’s why we are separating this league by age rather than ability. The 9s will play against 9-year-olds the 10s will have their own league,” McHan said.