SALTILLO — A year after advancing to the state finals for the first time, Vicksburg High is facing an early exit from the playoffs.

Saltillo pitcher Dillon Payne, making his first start in two weeks because of arm fatigue, held the hard-hitting Gators to one run and three hits in a 7-1 victory Friday in Game 1 of a Class 4A first-round playoff series.

Vicksburg, which made it to the 4A finals last season, now must win two games today at Bazinsky Field just to make it out of the first round. Game 2 of the best-of-three series is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. If the Gators win, Game 3 will be played immediately afterward.

Junior right-hander Cole Morse will take the mound for Saltillo in Game 2, while Vicksburg is likely to counter with senior righty Kurt Cooksey.

“We’re going to have to have another perfect game like we had tonight,” said Saltillo coach Johnny Bolen. “It’s not going to be easy. They’re not going to lay down and die.”

Payne went the distance, striking out 11 and walking three. The junior left-hander improved to 6-2 on the year.

“It feels great,” Payne said. “We went out there, we hit the ball, they played behind me and we did great.”

The junior southpaw got all the runs he would need in the bottom of the third when his team sent 12 hitters to the plate and scored six runs.

Jake Littlejohn and Cole Morse had RBI singles, and the Tigers got seven of their 12 hits in the inning as they knocked Vicksburg ace Brian Fitzgerald out of the game.

“Our approach was to stay back and take the ball the other way because the scouting report said he (Fitzgerald) likes to throw to everybody on the outside corner,” Bolen said. “We did a good job off him.”

Fitzgerald (5-1), who like Payne missed a couple of starts late in the season because of arm stiffness, suffered his first loss of the season. He gave up six runs, eight hits and two walks in 2 1/3 innings. He did strike out four Saltillo hitters before giving way to fellow lefty Blake Tarnabine.

The Tigers struck Tarnabine for one run in the sixth when the Vicksburg pitcher surrendered back-to-back doubles to Littlejohn and Morse.

Tarnabine struck out two, allowed four hits and walked none in finishing the game for the Gators (18-7).

“I’m disappointed that we didn’t stay back and hit him like we should,” Bolen said.

The Gators, on the other hand, seemed to have a gameplan of working the count against Payne, but that wasn’t really planned, coach Jamie Creel said.

“Not particularly,” Creel said. “We’re an aggressive team. We’re planning to be aggressive, and the guy just made the pitches to get us out.”

The Gators finally got to Payne in the top of the seventh, scoring on Kurt Cooksey’s solo home run to left.

“He’s either piping strikes or way out of the zone, which is effective,” Creel said of Payne. “He was very effective today. I thought he did a great job of controlling our hitters, and hopefully we can come out tomorrow and swing the bat a little better.”