The Clinton team that took the field Tuesday in no way resembled the one that won the Class 5A championship last season. That hardly took the shine off Michelle Fisackerly’s first victory as Vicksburg High’s slow-pitch softball coach.

Kelli Brewer went 2-for-4 with two triples, three RBIs and three runs scored, and the Missy Gators batted around twice in four at-bats while hammering Clinton 21-3 at Halls Ferry Park.

Claire Ray, Lea Davies, Savannah Pritchard and Erin Sterling all drove in two runs apiece for Vicksburg (1-2). All but one starter had at least one hit, and all 10 of them scored at least one run.

“I just hope we continue to play like this, just a little smarter in certain areas. As season openers go, it was a very nice way to open the season,” said Fisackerly, who was a four-year softball letterwinner at VHS from 1992-96.

Fisackerly spent three years as an assistant softball coach at West Bolivar and two more as a ninth-grade basketball assistant at VHS before taking over the slow-pitch program this summer. She’s hoping to turn around a perennially mediocre program that hasn’t won a division title in nearly a decade.

“I’m hoping so. I’ve got a great bunch of girls to do it with and a great assistant coach,” Fisackerly said.

While Fisackerly is hoping to improve Vicksburg’s program, Clinton coach Allen Lunceford is wondering what happened to his. The Lady Arrows won last year’s state title, but returned only one starter and three varsity players. Only three of the 17 players on the roster are juniors or seniors.

The inexperience showed Tuesday as Clinton committed 10 errors. Vicksburg batted around in the bottom of the first and jumped out to an 8-0 lead, then batted around again in the third as it increased the lead to 18-3.

Lunceford, wanting his young players to get some game experience, declined to use the mercy rule until the fifth inning, as allowed under MHSAA rules. Vicksburg scored three times in the fourth – two of the runs coming on Erin Sterling’s two-run single – to make it 21-3, and after Clinton was retired in the fifth Lunceford allowed the umpires to call it.

“It’s hard to play at this level, as inexperienced as we are,” Lunceford said. “After this, all you can do is challenge them. We set a goal 10 games from now, how much better we’re going to be. By better, you can’t say how many wins, just how much better hitting. How much better fielding a ground ball.”