NATCHEZ — It may have been just a practice game late Monday afternoon at Ballew-Bowlin Field between the Vidalia 9- and 10-year-old All-Stars and the Natchez 10-year-old All-Stars, but it looked more like a playoff game.

The two teams were taking on each other for coaches to see what they like and what areas need the most improvement before getting ready for their respected tournaments.

But the players on both teams were going all out and giving it their best in this hour-and-a-half game and the Natchez 10-year-old All-Stars held on for a 13-8 win.

“They did good. They didn’t get any practice in because it rained last week,” Natchez 10-year-old All-Stars coach Ben Hewitt said. “All they’ve got to do is pull together. The team from Vidalia has played together for two weeks.”

And having played together for that stretch of time should have given the Vidalia 9- and 10-year-old All-Stars the advantage. But that wasn’t the case through three innings as Natchez jumped out to a 12-1 lead.

Vidalia scored one run in the top of the first inning as leadoff hitter William Handjis reached on an error and later scored on a fielder’s choice by Pate Shirley. But despite having the bases loaded twice, Vidalia couldn’t bring in any more runs against starting pitcher Lester Wells.

Natchez tallied seven runs in the bottom of the first inning against Vidalia starting pitcher Handjis on three hits, three errors, two walks and a groundout. Quinton Logan brought in two runs with a single, Jadarius Anderson had a two-run double, Thomas Garrity doubled in a run and scored on an error, and Cameron Farmer scored on a groundout by Peyton Laird.

“We left a bunch of runners on base. They had three good pitchers and we needed to see that before we started sub-district,” Vidalia 9- and 10-year-olds All-Star coach Daniel Grayson said. “The main thing we’ve got to do is eliminate some errors.”

Vidalia finally got its first hit in the top of the second inning on a one-out single by Chandler Grayson, but Wells struck out the next two batters to end the top half of the inning.

Natchez scored four more runs in the bottom of the second. Ashton Blank got to first on an infield single and later scored when Wells reached first on a fielder’s choice. Then with one out, Trey Fleming got to first safely on a fielder’s choice. With Logan at the plate, Wells stole third and Fleming stole second, eliminating any chance of a double play.

Logan tripled to the fence in right field to score Wells and Fleming and later scored on an RBI groundout by Kenneth Jordan to make it an 11-1 ball game.

Logan then came in to pitch for Natchez in the top of the third inning. After giving up a leadoff walk to Handjis, Logan struck the side in order. In just three innings, Wells and Logan struck out a combined five batters.

“This was basically the same team I coached last year when they were 9-year-olds,” Hewitt said. “This gets us ready for the real games.”

Natchez got a solo home run from Cameron Farmer in the bottom of the third and an RBI single by Caleb Watts in the bottom of the fourth. In between, Vidalia scored five runs off Thomas Garrity on two hits, two errors, two walks and two fielder’s choices. Cole Cangemi each had an RBI single, Dakota Hunt brought in a run on a bases-loaded walk and the other two runs were on errors.

“We did well. We’re using this to play kids at different positions,” Grayson said. “Just kind of give us an idea of what we’ve got.”

Wells came back in and got the final out in the top of the fourth and gave up two runs on one hit, three walks and a hit batsman in the top of the fifth. He also struck out two more batters, giving him five for the game.

Logan went 3-for-3 with four runs batted in and Garrity was 1-for-2 with two RBIs for the Natchez 10-year-old All-Stars. Chandler Grayson was 2-for-2 with a walk and two RBIs for the Vidalia 9- and 10-year-old All-Stars.