FLOWOOD — Right about the time Mother Nature sent a little rain into Warren Central’s lives, so did the Hartselle Tigers.

Deacon Aldridge’s two-run, tiebreaking single with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning gave Hartselle the lead, and it stood up as a 3-1 victory Friday in a Mid-Mississippi Classic game played at Jackson Prep.

The loss dropped Warren Central’s record to 0-2 in the three-game tournament pitting teams from Mississippi against those from Alabama. WC lost its Classic opener 10-2 to Grissom, Ala., on Thursday.

The Vikings, who are 2-3 overall, are scheduled to play Walker, Ala. today at 4 p.m. at Brandon High School, but rain forecast for much of the day are likely to make the game against Hartselle their finale.

“It’s been good to see some teams we don’t normally get to see. Obviously we’re still figuring some things out. That’s what this tournament is for, is to figure things out before you get into your district,” WC coach Josh Abraham said. “It’s unfortunate we didn’t win one. We were in both of them. You get late in games and you have to push your pitching too far.”

Friday’s game was delayed an hour by rain, then played in a constant mist that eventually turned into a heavy drizzle in the sixth and seventh innings. The steadier rain led to a scary moment in the top of the seventh.

WC’s Devon Bell, standing in the on-deck circle, lost control of his slippery bat while taking a practice swing. It flew through the home plate area, about 2 feet above the heads of the umpire and catcher and just behind the batter. None of them saw the bat until it had safely passed overhead and hit the backstop near the third-base dugout.

“It was just wet. The bat, my gloves, clothes, all of it,” Bell said. “It was pretty scary. I thought I was about to hit the umpire. I was speechless.”

Moments earlier, the rest of the Vikings felt the same, albeit for a different reason.

With the game tied 1-1 in the bottom of the sixth, an error and two walks loaded the bases for Hartselle with two outs. WC reliever Beau Wallace worked the count to 0-2 on Aldridge, but the Hartselle center fielder pounded a single through the left side to bring in the go-ahead runs.

WC then went down in order in the seventh to end it.

“That’s pretty disappointing. We came over here to get two wins, but sometimes you don’t get what you want,” said Bell, who took the loss after allowing five hits and three walks in 52⁄3 innings. All three runs were charged to him.

Besides allowing Hartselle to rally with two outs, the Vikings made several other costly mistakes. Will Stegall drove in the first run of the game with an RBI single in the fourth inning, then was thrown out stealing on the back end of an inning-ending double play, the victim of an apparent missed hit-and-run.

In the sixth, Clayton Ashley led off with a double but misread a breaking ball in the dirt and was thrown out trying to take third. Wallace followed with a walk, but Carlos Gonzales hit into another inning-ending double play to end the threat.

Hartselle’s first run also scored on a wild pitch.

“It was a big play of the game,” Abraham said of Ashley’s base running boo-boo, “but we preach to them that they have to overcome all that. That isn’t what beat us.”