While a contentious atmosphere filled the beginning of the championship game for the 16-year-olds’ Governor’s Cup, it turned into a pretty good matchup between a mish-mash of Vicksburg area high school players.

Montana McDaniel, a sophomore at Porters Chapel Academy, pitched four strong innings of relief to lift Brown’s Bombers to a 5-3 win over the aptly named Vicksburg Misfits to claim the Cup Sunday afternoon at Bazinsky Field.

McDaniel was one of two pickups Vicksburg High summer coach Roosevelt Brown made in order to put a club in the five-team tournament. The remainder of the squad was the Gators’ junior varsity team which Brown coached for the first six weeks of the summer, concluding with the Warren Central Junior Tournament.

“After we concluded our summer, I hand-picked some guys to play in this tournament,” said Brown, who will be headed to Arizona to participate in an executive scouting clinic run by the Kansas City Royals. Another player Brown, who played for the Chicago Cubs, got was Murrah sophomore Alvin Franklin.

Franklin had a big impact early before getting ejected for running over the Misfits’ Mack Middleton during a rundown play between first and second. Franklin had tripled and scored a run in the bottom of the first to tie the game at 2. He then pitched a scoreless third inning to keep the game tied with the Bombers batting in the bottom of the third.

After Lamar Anthony led off by reaching on an errant throw, Franklin got his second hit on an infield single, which sent Anthony to third. Misfits pitcher Clayton Ashley then caught Franklin off first base. Franklin stayed alive, allowing Anthony to score the go-ahead run. But then, instead of just getting tagged out, he bulled into McDaniel with his arms up.

Franklin was immediately ejected. Middleton and Kruez Federick were also tossed for arguing.

The two teams were already on edge from an incident before the game when the Bombers weren’t allowed to use what is customarily the Vicksburg High dugout. The Misfits had used it in the previous game, a 10-5 win over the Warren County Blue Jays, and didn’t want to move out. An argument arose between the teams and their supporters.

With Franklin out of the game, McDaniel came in with a 4-2 lead. He retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced, getting loud cheers from a contingent of Bomber fans.

“That was pretty unreal,” McDaniel said of the cheers he got while wearing Vicksburg High green. Two of the first six he retired were his own PCA teammates in Gabby Hays and Matthew Warren. “That was fun.” McDaniel’s only mistake was hitting pinch-hitter Travis Haas with a pitch in the fifth inning. Haas came around to score to make it 4-3.

The Bombers got the run back in the bottom of the sixth when McDaniel walked, stole second and scored on Tyler Ferrington’s hit to left.

In the seventh, McDaniel gave up a leadoff single to Jacob Thomas but then came back to pop up the next three Misfits to end the game.

Franklin and Lem Richardson each had two hits for the Bombers. Austin Hynum had a two run single in the first for the Misfits.

7-year-oldsBraves 11, PSA Titans 9

The Vicksburg Braves won three games Sunday, finishing it off by rallying for four runs in the bottom of the fifth to beat the PSA Titans 11-9 in the 7-year-olds’ championship game at Bazinsky Park.

The Braves allowed just one run in winning both their quarterfinal and semifinal games. They beat West Monroe 8-0 and the Clinton Arrows 9-1 to reach the finals against PSA.