Afternoon thunderstorms rained out Friday’s opening night of the Governor’s Cup at Halls Ferry Park.

Tournament director Scott Verhine said this weekend’s tournament, which features play in the 6-, 8-, 10-, 12- and 14-year-old divisions, will begin today at 9 a.m.

This is the third time in four years that an entire day of play had been called off. In 2008, the first night of play was postponed and in 2009 the championship round was rained out.

In addition to moving the start of today’s action, all pool play games will be shortened by 20 minutes and have a 1 hour, 10 minute time limit.

In 2008, the same strategy of shortening games was used. It allowed tournament organizers to cram in the extra games on Saturday and maintain the original Sunday schedule for the championship round.

If everything goes according to plan, two 12-year-olds’ games will begin at 9:45 tonight. That’s one of the latest scheduled starts in tournament history, but a necessity to keep Sunday’s championship round on track.

“We just have too much standing water on the fields and it looks like we have another big cloud just south of us,” Verhine said while looking over the trees to the south, where another menacing cloud was lurking. “We’ll keep the same schedule, we just moved the times back to let us get the fields ready. If we have to make any changes, coaches can go to our website.”

Only six games in all, three each in the 10- and 12-year-olds’ divisions, were scheduled for Friday. Two 12-year-olds’ teams, the Vicksburg Warriors and Sterlington, were already dressed and at the park when the news came that their 6:15 p.m. game had been postponed. Other postponed games in the 12-year-olds’ division include the Vicksburg Volts against the Crush and the Panthers vs. Destruction.

In the 10-year-olds’ division, the Vicksburg Braves had two games washed out, against the Mississippi Athletics and the Red Raiders. The Clinton Arrows were to play Southwest Rankin in the other division game.

All of the postponed games will be played this afternoon, between the scheduled end of pool play and the start of the elimination round.

Play in the four-team 6-year-olds’ division was scheduled will begin as scheduled today at 9:30 a.m. The championship game is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.

Both the 6- and 8-year-olds were originally scheduled to play their entire tournaments today, but the larger 8-year-olds’ tournament will now have its championship game on Sunday afternoon.

The five-team 14-year-olds’ division will begin this morning at 9:30 and follow the original schedule. The championship game is set for Sunday at 5 p.m.