A good, tight game to begin the season ended, fittingly, with a play at the plate.

Terry catcher Matt Knight tagged out Warren Central’s Trey Prentiss for the final out Friday night, completing a game-ending double play that preserved a 4-3 victory for the Bulldogs in the season opener for both teams.

Prentiss tried to score on a ground ball hit by Brandon Gates to second base with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning. Gates was retired on the grounder, then Terry first baseman Nick Wilson fired to the plate to get Prentiss for the final out.

Warren Central coach Josh Abraham said the Vikings wanted to execute a wheel play and he took the blame for it not working.

“We had a wheel play on and that one is on me,” Abraham said. “We didn’t work on it enough. If there was some indecision it was because we should’ve worked more on it in practice.”

Abraham noted this was the first game for a Viking team that lost six starters from last year’s Division 4-6A championship team.

“This is game one, not game 28,” Abraham said. “Tonight, we didn’t get the job done.”

Terry coach Jerry Gibson felt it was a good move to send Prentiss home to tie the game at 4.

“I would’ve done the same thing,” Gibson said. “Had the runner not slowed up, he probably would have scored standing up. It was a great ballgame to start the year. We pretty much lost everything we had like (Michael) Manley and (Rashun) Dixon, so this was a good win for us.”

Both teams took advantage of a pair of unearned runs and good pitching to take a 2-2 game into the sixth inning. Terry scored two in the first on a double by Josh Townes and a single by Wilson. The runs came after a dropped fly ball in right with two outs.

Warren Central answered with two runs in the bottom of the first on a single by Clayton Ashley, which followed a Terry error in right field.

Warren Central pitcher Blake Jobe tossed three scoreless innings, but ran into trouble in the fifth after a single and two bunts loaded the bases with no outs. Devon Bell entered in relief and got out of the jam to keep it tied.

Terry untied it in the sixth. With two on and two out, Cody Dwyer hit a ball to the right field corner. Marcus Brumfield trotted in from third while Zach Zavell scored from first to make it 4-2. Dwyer sprinted into third for the triple.

WC got a run back in the bottom of the sixth when Ashley reached on an error and then scored on a one-out hit by Will Stegall. Stegall reached third after a steal and a wild pitch, but was stranded there.

In the bottom of the seventh, WC catcher Josh Stuckey drew a one-out walk. Prentiss came in as a courtesy runner and swiped second base. Beau Wallace was hit by a pitch to put two on for Gates and set up the game’s final play.

Stringer went 5 1/3 innings to grab the win and Hodges picked up a save. Bell took the loss.

Ashley led Warren Central with a two-run single and also scored a run. Terry was paced by Townes with two hits, an RBI and a run scored.