Even the Vicksburg Gators are under no illusions that their postseason run will end with water coolers dumped on their coach and a dogpile on the infield at Trustmark Park. A 4-19 regular season tends to bring reality back into the picture when those kinds of dreams creep in.

Winning a series and shocking the Mississippi baseball world, though?

That, the Gators feel like they’re more than capable of.

Vicksburg will head to Saltillo (12-9) on Friday night for Game 1 of a best-of-three series in the first round of the MHSAA Class 5A playoffs. It’ll host Game 2 Saturday at 4 p.m. at Bazinsky Field.

The Gators are heavy underdogs, but coming off their best week of the season and feeling frisky about their chances of springing an upset.

“This team has to believe they can do it, and if they go in with that mindset it can be done,” Vicksburg coach Derrick DeWald said. “Saltillo is a good team, but they can’t be better than the teams we’ve played this year because we’ve faced a freaking gauntlet.”

Indeed, the Gators have played a difficult schedule that has contributed to their futility. Games against Class 4A, 5A and 6A powers like Warren Central, Germantown, Pearl, Clinton, Terry, Lawrence County and North Pike have littered the schedule. In a number of those games, the Gators were in it for a few innings before errors and a lack of hitting allowed the opponent to pull away.

This week, however, that trend started to reverse itself.

Vicksburg swept a doubleheader from Lanier on Monday to earn its playoff spot, and was competitive in a 7-2 loss to Clinton on Wednesday that was shortened by rain. As important as the two wins over Lanier were, pitcher Gage Ederington said the loss to Clinton might have done more to boost the team’s confidence.

“(Wednesday) we competed with Clinton, and I think it showed people we can compete with whoever we want,” said Ederington, who will start Game 1 against Saltillo. “If we put it together, and do what we’ve been taught, we’ll be fine.”

Another reason for optimism is the way the Gators have swung the bats this week. They scored 24 runs in three games against Lanier and Clinton. In their other 20 games combined, they scored a total of 29 runs.

The Gators have also had 29 hits in their last four games, and only 36 the rest of the season. This week’s hot streak has raised their team batting average nearly 70 points, from .149 to .217.

“Everybody’s been more aggressive and decided to swing the bat,” said Ederington, who is hitting .294 for the season and is 6-for-9 in the last four games. “Through the season, everybody was more passive and wasn’t attacking the curveball when it was hanging. We’ve gotten more aggressive.”

The season-long pattern the Gators set early on has also diminished a bit. Often, they’d make it to the third or fourth inning before things fell apart. Lately, that has happened in the fifth or sixth or, like against Lanier and Clinton, not at all.

It’s given them hope and confidence that one great game — or one great series — is on the horizon. Now they just need to make it happen.

“We actually played pretty good until the fourth or fifth inning against Clinton. I just hope that momentum can carry over to Friday and Saturday,” Vicksburg shortstop Dewayne Sims said. “It really doesn’t matter about the regular season. It matters about the playoffs. We’re going up there with nothing to lose, so I feel like we can go get the ‘W.’”