It was a rough Wednesday afternoon for Vicksburg High.

The Gators fell behind quickly and struggled to hit, field or throw strikes. The result was a five-inning, mercy rule shortened 12-1 loss to Wayne County in their second game of the Battle on the River spring break tournament at Bazinsky Field.

Vicksburg’s pitchers walked seven batters and hit four more. Behind them, the fielders committed three errors that led to six unearned runs.

“Their leadoff guy got on every inning, and pretty much set the tone for the day,” Vicksburg coach Derrick DeWald said. “They’re a good team. Today they were aggressive, they got a few key hits with runners in scoring position. At the end of the day, that’s something that I talked about last week that we have to correct, is throwing strikes and getting guys out and not putting guys on base for good hitters to get them in. At the end of the day, that’s just how baseball is.”

Tanner Wells went 2-for-3 with two RBIs and two runs scored for Wayne County (7-4). Brenon Sehon was 1-for-2 with two RBIs, and was hit by a pitch twice. Rodricus Watkins scored three runs.

Wayne County scored in all five innings, including four runs in both the second and fourth.

Sehon singled in two runs in the second inning, and Wells followed two batters later with another RBI single to give the War Eagles a 5-0 lead. They added two more runs in the third, and then put it away with the second four-spot in the fourth inning.

Tyler Newsome had a two-run single to key the fourth-inning rally that made it 11-0.

Vicksburg (2-6) did not get a runner on base until Alfred Barnes reached on an infield single leading off the bottom of the fourth inning. He went to third on another base hit by Branden Humphrey, and scored on a balk.

In the fifth, Vicksburg managed to get two runners on base again, but an infield pop up ended the game.

Wayne County pitcher Tanner Johnson threw a complete game, allowing just the two hits and one run. He struck out seven and walked none.

“Once the game got kind of out of hand, it got away from us, and we were trying to fight back, but I liked a couple of our guys’ approach today,” DeWald said. “I told them after the game, you just have to trust the process of what we’re doing, and you’ll start seeing those results. We just can’t get behind right now. Offensively we’re just not there. When you get behind early in the game 5, 6 nothing, it puts a lot of pressure on your pitching staff and your defense. And when your pitchers aren’t throwing strikes, your defense doesn’t know when the ball is going to be put in play, and as a result, we made some errors.”

Though the Gators couldn’t replicate the offensive production from their previous outing against West Bolivar, when they scored six runs, DeWald did see improvement.

“We’re really trying to work with some guys who are hitting the ball on one side of the field, we’re trying to really spread it out,” Dewald said. “I thought today we didn’t have the results that we wanted to, especially on the scoreboard, but I thought we had some good at-bats, some good approaches.”

DeWald felt that improving his team’s pitching and defensive problems went hand-in-hand.

“You have to be able to pitch, throw and catch,” DeWald said. “The teams that do that really well are the teams that are really successful, and the times that struggle doing that, at the end of the day you’re on the other end of the scoreboard.”

The Gators played St. Aloysius later Wednesday to conclude the Battle on the River tournament. They’ll play at West Lincoln on Monday, and then face division rival Germantown in a home-and-home series March 20 and 23.