BRANDON — Warren Central had a good day at the plate. It had a stirring comeback against one of the best teams in Mississippi.

What it didn’t have was a victory to show for it.

After the Vikings rallied for four runs in the top of the seventh inning to tie the game, Brandon won it in the bottom half when Zach Taylor lifted an RBI single into left field for a 9-8 walk-off victory.

“We dug ourselves a hole and had to battle out of it the whole game,” Warren Central coach Conner Douglas said. “We had seven balls hit right on the screws, right at somebody. The ball didn’t fall our way. I’m proud of them. They grinded it out, they competed their tail off. We’ve just got to get off the bus in that first and second inning.”

Brandon (16-3) used a three-run home run by Colton Cox in the first inning and a two-run double by Jordan Mitchell in the second — plus three errors by WC — to jump out to a 7-2 lead. Warren Central (8-6) spent the rest of the day playing catch-up and being frustrated by its own success.

The Vikings had seven well-hit balls into the outfield that resulted in line drive outs or fly outs to the deepest part of the ballpark. In the seventh inning, Brooks Boolos sliced a deep fly into the right field corner that likely would have been a bases-clearing double, but it fell about five feet foul.

The Vikings finished with eight hits, including a two-run homer by Zach Cox in the second inning. Layne Tedder was 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored.

It was with some irony, then, that their game-tying rally included two infield hits, two walks, and a soft single to center by Josh Lieberman that brought in two runs. Warren Central batted around in the seventh inning, but only hit two balls out of the infield — Lieberman’s single and another base hit by Tedder that got things started.

“Baseball is a funny game, man,” Douglas said. “When you do things right, eventually good things will happen. When we hit a ball (hard) like that, when we’re busting our tail down the line, good things happen. We’ve just got to make those routine plays early in the game to keep us in it.”

The rally ended when Colton Norris grounded out with the bases loaded, and Brandon wasted little time making it all a moot point.

Colton Cox led off the bottom of the seventh with a single and was replaced by courtesy runner Matt Warren. A sacrifice bunt and a passed ball moved Warren to third, and he trotted home with the winning run when Taylor lifted a two-out single to shallow left field.

“It was a heartbreaker. They got a hit when they needed to. You’ve just got to give it to them. They did what they needed to and they won that game,” Zach Cox said. “I felt like we didn’t come out fighting in the first inning, and that’s what hurt us. Throughout the game we continued to fight and fight back, and it just ended in their favor today.”