Warren Central spent the whole weekend trying to catch up to Madison Central.

Madison Central never let the Vikings catch up.

Ole Miss signee Logan Savell allowed one run in 6 2/3 innings, and Madison Central beat Warren Central 6-1 to complete a two-game sweep of their Class 6A baseball playoff series S aturday night.

Warren Central finished its season with a 21-10 record, but lost to Madison Central for the 24th time in 26 meetings and in the second round of the playoffs for the third year in a row.

“It’s tough, especially for the seniors, to end with a game like that. We played so well all year, and for us to have two bad innings and put those zeroes up the rest of the way, it sucks. It got away from us early,” Warren Central coach Conner Douglas said. “We still had our chances and fought. We just couldn’t get that big hit. We had three or four balls hit right at them that changes the game if it falls for us, and it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Madison Central (24-5) advanced to face Oxford in the Class 6A quarterfinals beginning on Thursday. Douglas said the Jaguars have the tools to make a run to the state finals at Trustmark Park in a couple of weeks, which seemed to take some of the sting out of the loss.

“It’s the toughest division in baseball, Class 6A. I think four of the last six years we’ve been eliminated by the state champion, and I think (Madison) is going to make a run at it. That’s why they’ve been ranked No. 1 all year. We ran into a buzzsaw and we couldn’t find ways to manufacture runs,” Douglas said.

Madison Central scored all of its runs in Game 2 in the first two innings. Helped along by two errors and two passed balls, the Jaguars jumped out to a big lead as Josh Cofield hit an RBI double and Lawson Stockett a two-run single.

Stockett’s hit capped a four-run rally in the second inning and made it 6-1. Savell took it from there. The right-hander gave up a leadoff double to Vantrel Reed in the first inning and an error to No. 2 hitter D.J. Lewis, then almost nothing for the rest of the game.

Savell retired 20 of 22 batters after Lewis reached base. He left the game in the seventh inning after surrendering a pair of walks, having thrown 6 2/3 innings and striking out six.

Savell’s dominance was a theme that flowed throughout the two-game series. Warren Central only had seven hits and scored one run combined against Savell and Game 1 starter Regi Grace, a Mississippi State signee.

“They threw really well. There’s a reason one of them is going to Ole Miss and one of them is going to Mississippi State,” Douglas said. “We had some balls hit right at them that didn’t fall and you tip your hat to the pitchers and to their defense. They had made a lot of errors lately, and they cleaned it up and made a lot of big plays. It’s part of baseball.”

While the Vikings struggled to hit the ball, Madison Central kept up a steady stream of offensive pressure. The Jaguars had runners on base in all 13 innings in which they batted in the series, and got a runner as far as second base in 11 of them. The leadoff man reached base in eight of the first 10 innings, before WC relievers Reed and Colin Standish retired them in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings of Game 2.

“It’s tough when you have to fight every inning. And then us not being able to get that hit to change the momentum, it’s tough,” Douglas said. “I’m still proud of our guys. We fought. We still had a chance in the last inning. We got the bases loaded. They made the pitches and the plays when they had to.”