On the road back to respectability, the Vicksburg Gators will have a lot of bright moments and turning points.

They also, unfortunately, will have a lot of days like Tuesday.

The Gators committed two errors that led to four unearned runs, only managed one hit, and lost 5-1 to Park Place Christian Academ in the Battle on the River spring break baseball tournament at Sports Force Parks on the Mississippi.

The Gators (3-4) also lost to Greenville on Monday night, 7-3, and finished 1-2 in the tournament. They have lost four of their last five games.

“This is a work in progress. When we inherited this team we knew the issues and circumstances we would face. Those things are starting to show up,” first-year Vicksburg coach Antonio Calvin said. “We haven’t put a complete game together yet. You’ll see flashes of what we could possibly be, but we can’t sustain that right now due to a lot of the old things that were implemented into them. They didn’t get into this mess overnight, and they’re not going to get out of it overnight. So for us, this is part of the building process. You have to keep tearing down layers, and each time you tear down a layer you find new issues.”

The issues Tuesday were a lack of hitting, some pivotal errors, and an overall lackluster effort.

Park Place scored twice in the bottom of the first inning. Jacob Summers led off with a double, advanced to third on an error, and scored on a sacrifice fly. Austin Massey then walked and scored on a single by Harrison Green.

Another error led to two runs in the third inning, and a wild pitch set up an RBI single by Keaton Boykin in the fifth that made it 5-0.

“They were just as much mental as they were physical. The physical errors do take a toll on us. The mental errors are just due to a lack of experience with our guys,” Calvin said. “They have never been required to analytically think and to become true baseball players. They have just been allowed, for a very long time, to go out and play ball and be satisfied with just being on the team. For us, that’s not satisfactory any more. To weed that behavior out of them is a work in progress.”

Park Place pitcher Zac Sewall shut down the Gators’ lineup. He walked two batters, hit one, and didn’t give up a hit until Kendrick Bershell led off the fourth inning with an infield single.

Vicksburg’s only run came with two strikes and two outs in the bottom of the fifth. Derrick Brown walked, stole second and third, and scored on a throwing error on the second stolen base attempt. Sewall finished his strikeout of Jarren McCalpin with the next pitch to end the game via the tournament’s 90-minute time limit.

Sewall had eight strikeouts.

“Honestly, I don’t think we came ready to play,” Calvin said. “We’re excited about the fact that it’s spring break and we’re ready to go. A lot of our guys are ready to go and do what they’re going to do with themselves.”