Vicksburg’s young softball team showed progress against Division 7-1A champ Cathedral on Monday at Bazinsky Park.

The Missy Gators (3-15) trailed the Green Waves just 5-3 after five complete innings. Cathedral (16-8) took advantage of the Missy Gators’ youthful infield to rally for six runs to go on and take a 12-4 win.

The loss was Vicksburg’s last home regular-season game and lone senior Tira Erwin was honored in a pregame ceremony. Erwin suffered a season-ending ankle injury. The Missy Gators lost two more players during the game as centerfielder Heather Middleton and left fielder Torey Daniels collided in the outfield on a pop fly in the top of the third inning. Middleton made the catch, but Daniels hurt her arm while trying to avoid her teammate. Middleton later left with a sore back.

“We had to finish up with two JV players who had not played varsity before in the outfield after Torey and Heather got hurt,” said VHS coach Amanda Yocum. “I was proud of the way we showed some progress and got better today. We had couple of opportunities earlier in the game to get some runs and if we make a catch here or there, we’re right in there against a really good team. I think we’re ready to move on to the second step.”

Cathedral coach Gary Blackwell said Vicksburg had improved since an earlier 10-1 loss to Cathedral.

“They’ve improved a whole lot. We had to bring in Ginny (Daggett) in there in the fifth with a hurt hand, but she stepped up and was able to close the game out. We have a team that has a lot of speed and we were able to get going in the sixth inning.”

Down 5-0, Vicksburg drew three straight walks to load the bases against Cathedral starter Mollie Devening. Reserve outfielder Shannon Botsford finally got a run home when her fielder’s choice to short resulted in a late throw home that couldn’t get Morgan Callendar. Paige Bowser also scored on an error. Blake DeRossette made it 5-3 when she scored on Faith Thomas’ ground out to short.

Catherdral opened the sixth with a double from Shannon Mire and a single from Betsy Daggett. An errant throw off a bunt to third allowed both runners to score to make it 7-3. Two more errors and RBIs from Devening and McKenzie Milligan capped the six-run outburst to make it 12-3.

Ginny Daggett, who came in to pitch in the VHS fifth, retired five straight before giving up a seventh inning single to Bowser, who later scored on a passed ball. Lea Davies also doubled in the seventh but was left at second, one of six Missy Gators to be stranded in scoring position.

Two of the key runners left on base for Vicksburg came in the second when Faith Thomas and Victoria Lewis led off with hits but were stranded on third and second.Vicksburg finished with five hits. Bowser had a hit and scored two runs. Davies went 1-for-2 with a double.

Cathedral got two hits each from Betsy Daggett, Mackenzie Watts and Mollie Devening.

Contact Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com