Warren Central needed to beat Brandon by five runs or more on Tuesday to catch the Lady Bulldogs and win the Division 6-5A championship.

It was like a horse and buggy trying to catch a Ferrari.

Brandon belted 22 hits and blew the game open with a nine-run fourth inning en route to an 18-4 demolition of Warren Central at Lucy Young Field. The top four batters in Brandon’s order went a combined 11-for-16 with a home run, two triples, two doubles, eight RBIs and 10 runs scored. Every batter in Brandon’s order had at least one hit, however.

“We’d been keeping up with them, and the last three games they hadn’t hit at all. Tonight they got in a zone and did some beautiful hitting,” Warren Central coach Lucy Young said. “You hit like that every game and you wouldn’t have a loss.”

The victory gave Brandon (9-7, 2-0) the division title and a first-round home playoff series against the Division 8-5A runner-up — either Biloxi, Hattiesburg or Harrison Central. Warren Central (10-6, 0-2) finishes second in the division and will travel to face the 8-5A winner in the first round.

Warren Central started off strong on Tuesday. Chelsea Worley led off the bottom of the first with a single and scored on another single by Anna Griffing to give the Lady Vikes a 1-0 lead.

That was the score until the top of the third, when Brandon went ahead for good. With a runner on first and one out, leadoff hitter Ashley Sistrunk hit a sharp grounder just inside the third base bag. It rolled all the way to the left field corner, and Sistrunk circled the bases for a two-run inside-the-park homer.

Brandon added three more unearned runs, all with two outs, to take a 5-1 lead.

WC got a run back in the bottom of the inning on an RBI double by Kaitlyn Patton, who went 2-for-3 with a double, triple and two RBIs. Brandon sent 14 batters to the plate in the top of the fourth, however, and scored nine runs to bust the game wide open.