Three outs away from a big opening night win in the Governor’s Cup 10-year-old Tournament, the River City Rage fell apart. The Byram Bombers came back from a 7-1 deficit with 10 runs in the top of the fourth to take the pool play game, 11-7 at Halls Ferry Park’s National Field.

Rage coach Ron Burris said late-inning meltdowns have been a problem this summer for his team.

“We just choked there at the end. That’s been our Achilles heel,” Burris said. “We had some good plays out of our infield and were doing good for the first three innings. Then we changed up our pitching and then we made mistakes. We seem to have that one bad inning.”

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Down 7-1, the Bombers rallied by having their first nine batters all reach base. Two infield errors started the inning. After a walk, Brett Skinner doubled in a run to make it 7-3. Tanner Hutchins singled to score another. A two-run single by Caleb Gill put the Bombers ahead 8-7. A change of pitchers did help the Rage record a pair of outs, even though the ground out by Dillon King upped the lead to 9-7. Gill and Charlie Rooks capped the rally by scoring on a wild pitch and an error to make it 11-7.

In all, the Bombers scored 10 runs off four hits, three errors and three walks.

“We showed a lot of character in coming back,” Bombers coach Joe Rooks said. “We had seen this team before in the USSSA state tournament and we beat them pretty bad. They were much better this time. They made some really good plays, especially at first base.”

The Bombers (17-10) are looking to repeat as Governor’s Cup champs, Rooks said.

“We won this year last year as 9-year-olds as the Forest Hill All-Stars. We have yet to win a tournament this summer, but we’ve been second twice and we were fourth out of 28 teams at our state tournament,” Rooks said.

All 12 of the Bombers either reached base or scored. Wayne Grantham picked up the win in relief. The Rage, which play again at 9 a.m. today, were led by Tyler McWright with an RBI double while Brett Oldenburg highlighted a five-run first with a two-run double. Colton Norris had a hit and two runs scored.

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Contact Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com