There was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that appeared over Halls Ferry Park on Friday evening. Just plenty of baseball.

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Despite a week of rain that dumped close to four inches on the park, and another shower that halted the first batch of games for about 45 minutes, the Governor’s Cup started on time and on schedule. It will continue today at 9 a.m., and wrap up on Sunday.

“Considering what we’ve seen with the rain, we’re not doing that bad,” tournament director Jeff Collins said. “The city crews did a great job today. The fields look as good as they have all year.”

City work crews and volunteers from the Vicksburg Warren Athletic Association arrived at Halls Ferry Park around 5 a.m. to prepare the fields for the start of the tournament 13 hours later. A pair of softball fields that were to be used for the 6-year-olds’ tournament were beyond repair, but five other fields were ready to go in time for the 6 p.m. start.

A passing thunderstorm shortly before 7 p.m. delayed most of the games for about 45 minutes and threatened to undo the work. It never turned into a heavy rain, though, and a few bags of drying agent poured onto the fields had them ready to go again.

One game, an 8-year-olds’ coach-pitch contest between the Forest Hill Diamondbacks and Clinton Arrows, never stopped. The teams played through the steady rain as Clinton rolled to a 17-2 victory.

The other delays pushed the start of the last game past 9 p.m. on Friday. And a forecast of more rain today has Collins drawing up contingency plans. For now, though, everything is running smoothly.

“I think everybody’s happy. Everybody is talking about the same thing, every tournament they go to it’s raining. I think everybody understands the weather,” Collins said.

Not everybody left the park happy.

The Got Game Cardinals used a walk-off double to beat the Vicksburg Mischief 8-7 in the opening game of the 9-year-olds’ tournament. And a few minutes before the conclusion of that game, the Brandon Hit Squad beat the Vicksburg Tide 8-2 in a three-inning game that featured no hits.

The Hit Squad drew a total of 12 walks, and combined that with a series of errors, stolen bases, passed balls and wild pitches to score four runs in the first, two in the second and two more in the third.

Vicksburg’s Braylon Greer drove in a run with a groundout in the bottom of the first, but the Tide got little else. Hit Squad pitcher Nick Hogan retired eight straight batters after allwoing a walk in the first inning and finished with four strikeouts.

The Tide also lost a second game on Friday, 10-9 to the Madison County Fireballs.

“It’s just 9-year-olds that are learning to pitch. And not getting runs when you get the opportunity,” Tide coach Tracy Shirey said.

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com