Southwest stymies Vicksburg 14-year-olds|[08/03/08]

Published 12:00 am Sunday, August 3, 2008

The Vicksburg All-Stars have had little success against Southwest Mississippi.

Today they will get one more shot against the 14-year-olds’ team from McComb in a No. 4 vs. 5 seed game of the Governor’s Cup.

The two teams met for the second time this summer on Saturday with Southwest holding off a late Vicksburg rally to win 5-4. Two weeks ago at Bazinsky Field, Southwest eliminated Vicksburg from the 14-year-olds’ Babe Ruth State Tournament with a 10-4 decision.

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Vicksburg All-Stars coach Mark Buys hopes the third time is a charm.

“I guess it’s the luck of the draw but we’ve got Southwest Mississippi again. Maybe we can handle their curve balls,” Buys said.

In both losses, Vicksburg had trouble getting started against Southwest pitcher Tyler Case. He struck out nine in the Babe Ruth Tournament and he struck out three in just over three innings of work on Saturday at the Governor’s Cup.

“Today was a tough loss but we did hit the ball better this time later in the game,” Buys said. “It was a more respectable score and it certainly helped us with our seeding for the remainder of the tournament.”

Vicksburg opened with a 12-0 romp on Friday night over the Madison Mustangs. Devin Bell hit a grand slam to key the victory.

But on Saturday, the All-Stars fell behind 5-0 after three innings. Case retired nine of the 10 batters he faced over his first three innings. He benefitted from solid infield defense as Southwest did not make an error.

Two errors by Vicksburg led to a three-run first inning for Southwest. Up 4-0 in the third, Southwest’s Justin Holmes led off with a double. He took on a passed ball and then scored on Anthony Durr’s bunt hit to make it 5-0.

Vicksburg got a pair of hits from Travis Barnett and Josh Eargle to start the fourth but a double play by the Southwest infield ended the threat.

In their last at bat in the fifth, Bell led off with a walk and Jake Busby singled. Two outs were sandwiched between a passed ball that allowed Bell to score Vicksburg’s first run. Zack Samuels singled to right to score Busby to cut the deficit to 5-2.

Chase Ladd then reached on an error to bring Barnett up. He sent a pop fly into shallow left that was misplayed, allowing both Samuels and Ladd to score to cut the lead to 5-4.

Case was brought back in and he struck out Eargle looking to end the game.