It was a long, dirty, distressing day for the Vicksburg All-Star teams. Both the 13- and 14-year-olds’ teams were beaten handily by their counterparts from Southwest Mississippi in the Babe Ruth state tournament Saturday afternoon.

The Vicksburg 14s, who came in as a favorite having won the USSSA state title, were sent packing after a 10-4 loss at Bazinsky Field.

“Obviously, I thought we are a much better team than how we played,” Vicksburg coach Mark Buys said. “We hurt ourselves in the field with some errors. Our bats went quiet. We had a situation in one inning where we get the first two guys on, bunt them over, and then never got them in.”

The key turning point came in the third when Southwest Mississippi’s Austin Travis hit a two-run home run to left to erase a 2-1 Vicksburg lead.

Southwest starter Tyler Case gave up two early runs to Vicksburg and then kept it scoreless for the next three innings. He struck out five in that span and had a 10-2 lead when Vicksburg scored its last two runs off errors in the fifth.

“The home run helped a lot. I found my groove after the first inning,” Case said. “I made some adjustments after seeing how the ump was going to call it.”

Case pitched a complete game to send Southwest into the finals on Saturday night against Long Beach. He finished with seven strikeouts while scattering five hits.

Cameron Cooksey, a freshman at Vicksburg High, started and went four innings. He struck out five and allowed eight runs. Only four were earned as Vicksburg made two costly errors to help Southwest score five times to take a commanding 8-2 lead after four innings.

13-year-oldsSW Miss. 17, Vicksburg 12

Southwest Mississippi scored 14 runs in the second inning and eliminated Vicksburg in the 13-year-olds’ tournament.

Down 16-5, Vicksburg mounted a comeback behind Brandon Gates, who finished with four hits, four RBIs and four runs scored. Vicksburg scored three times in the seventh to cut it to 17-12.

Chase Ladd had a three-run home run for Vicksburg and Cameron Upton scored three runs.