NATCHEZ — Monterey High School’s Kade Passman limited Vidalia’s offense to minimal production in a 9-3 victory at the 2014 Vidalia High School baseball tournament.

Passman struck out seven and allowed only six hits and three runs, with three of the hits and two of the runs coming in the seventh inning.

“When he takes the mound, we expect that,” said Monterey head coach Eric Richard. “He’s done it since he was 8 years old. He fills the zone with strikes and makes them put the ball in play.”

Monterey took advantage of an early Vidalia error and capitalized with an RBI single by Jake Barlow to take a 2-0 lead on Vidalia in the first inning. After a walk and an error allowed two Viking hitters on in the bottom of the first, Monterey’s Ryne Richard made a run-saving, over-the-shoulder catch with two outs to end the inning.

“That was a good play,” Richard said. “He always has played good defensively. As a whole, we’re playing good ball defensively right now.”

The Vikings left two runners stranded in the first, second and fifth innings. Vidalia head coach Kale Davis was disappointed with his team’s inability to generate clutch hits with men on base.

“We’ve been having problems generating runs when we need them,” Davis said. “We just never came through with the timely hitting that we needed.”

Monterey had no problem putting the ball in play with runners on base. Barlow went 3-for-4 with two RBI doubles and an RBI single. Ashton Holland and Passman had RBI singles as well.

Like most teams around the area, Monterey was late switching gears to baseball, as seven Wolves starters played basketball. Richard feels his team is finally getting into a groove.

“This is the first week that we’ve had two back-to-back practices, and I think it showed in the way we hit the baseball (Friday),” Richard said. “I enjoyed the win, but we have to come back (today) with momentum.”

Monterey finished the game with 11 hits and one error, while Vidalia had six hits and five errors. Tyler Sandifer had a double for the Vikings, while Josh Foucher and Nathan Knapp had RBI singles.

William Handjis gave up seven runs and struck out seven in six innings for the Vikings.

Vidalia will play Harrisonburg at noon today in the second day of the tournament, while Monterey will play Block at 2 p.m.