Early on, Vicksburg seemed to be in control of its softball matchup with Bogue Chitto Friday evening.

Mya’h Wright scored the first run for Vicksburg followed by Mckenzie Thomason to hold a one run lead over the Bobcats through the first three innings. By the end of the fourth inning both teams had two runs.

The Bobcats busted the field open to start the fifth inning, which resulted in a 12-3 win over Vicksburg.

Bogue Chitto scored six runs in that inning and began to pull away when Terrah Nelson doubled on a line drive to left field running in Cherie Savoie. Alana Nettles scored after Christian Black hit a single to center field and Black was later hit to home plate when Codi Leggett hit a double to center field. The Bobcats would finish the fifth inning with a 8-2 lead over Vicksburg before scoring four more runs in the top of the seventh.

“We’ve been struggling making routine plays. That’s been our Achilles the last three games. We’re throwing outs but we’re not making outs,” Vicksburg coach Brian Ellis said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in a tight ball game or not if you don’t make the routine plays you can’t win ball games.”

Ellis said the team was able to keep the game close early on because they were able to make the routine plays and refrained from making the same mistake twice. The team was also able to make better contact with the ball and hit a lot harder.

Vicksburg’s defense only gave up two base hits in the fourth inning. The Bobcats favored hitting the ball down the left side of the field, where Mya’h Wright lobbed the ball to Kelcey Lockridge for quick outs. Despite giving up 12 runs, pitcher Olivia Oakes had 31 first pitch strikes.

Ellis said his team has been putting the ball in play but they haven’t been striking out players. The Missy Gators were able to load the bases but left players on and finished the game with nine hits and seven errors.

“When things started falling apart and we started throwing the ball around and they were able to get an extra base and that takes you out of the force play. We were making routine plays in the first part of the game,” Ellis said.

This performance is a part of a three game losing slump for the Missy Gators. They put lost 15-1 against Ridgeland. Vicksburg’s game against Brookhaven was called by the run rule. It gave up 14 runs to Brookhaven, of which five were earned.

Each loss was a result of the team not being able to consistently make routine plays.

“Some of it is just mental,” Ellis said. “We’re worried about amking mistakes and we make mistakes. You got to want the ball and want to make the play. Our last three ball games, we haven’t lost the games because of the difficulty of their hitting or fielding. We had the difficult because we can’t make routine plays.”