Mother Nature recorded the first hit in Warren Central’s softball tournament this weekend.

The frosty rain and sleet that slammed Warren County this week flooded Bazinsky Fields — where the tourney was originally supposed to take place — and forced it to be relocated to the Vikings’ home field.

Because of the change in location and subtraction of an extra field, participating teams will now play two games as opposed to three matchups spread throughout the day.

“You hate to play so many games on your field. It kind of tears it up a little bit, especially when it’s wet, and the fact that we had to move it from two fields to one field, having to shorten the length and time of the games. Every team is only getting two games as opposed to three games,” Warren Central coach Dana McGivney said. “Nobody’s going to get as much time to play as we would have liked, especially this early in the season.”

The abrupt change shortened the tournament and switched games around to minimize wait times and accommodate the five teams traveling to Vicksburg for the weekend.

Two local teams will start things off Saturday morning at 9 am, when Vicksburg and St. Aloysius take to the diamond for the opening game. The crosstown rivalry between Warren Central and Vicksburg will follow at 10:15. The third local participating team, St. Aloysius, will end the day with a 12:45 matchup against Brookhaven. At 5:45 pm, the Lady Vikes will end the tourney when they face Loyd Star.

“This is the first in-season tournament for the 2014-2015 season,” McGivney said. “It will be a good judge to see just kind of what you need to work on and also let the kids see what they need to work on. We’ll put in different players and see what lineup works best and throw different pitchers.”

The WC head coach believes tournaments like these are great for tinkering with her starting lineup to find the best mesh of players to carry the team through the season. It also affords her the opportunity to give some girls who wouldn’t normally start the chance for early playing time.

“We look for a lot of different things, especially with the kids who maybe aren’t in the starting lineup. We put them in to run and we want to know, can they run bases, are they effective on the bases, or if we need somebody to go into the field or hit or whatever, we want to see if they’re ready,” McGivney said.

“We have several kids who can play and, unfortunately, you’re limited to only playing nine at a time. When you’ve got about 11, 12 or 13 kids that could be starting, you’re trying to figure out which mix works the best.”

For her Lady Vikes (3-1), McGivney said she is looking for solid defense and consistent pitching from her squad as they prepare for Region 4-6A play.

“I want to see good pitching and also limiting our errors and swinging the bat well. Any time we swing the bat well and can put some runs on the board, we tend to play better defense,” she said. “We’re more relaxed. Mainly my biggest focus is (playing) error free, or as close to error free as possible, and having good pitching.”

While the weather has dampened the fields, it hasn’t dampened the attitude of the Warren Central team as it prepares for the weekend.

“We think this tournament is a good kickoff for all these teams to come in at the beginning of the season and get the season started off to see how they’re playing,” McGivney said. “Unfortunately, we just won’t get to play as much as we like.”