Vidalia — Mental errors by both teams decided a close baseball game between Vidalia and Buckeye Monday night.

Fortunately for the Vikings, they recovered their wits first for a 6-5 win at home.

Vidalia was ahead 6-4 at the top of the seventh inning and seemed to have the game in hand as Mason Ozburn took the mound to close, but Ozburn’s walk of the first batter of the inning meant the Panthers were not going down quietly.

Designated hitter Greg Nall, who was 2-for-3 for the night, hit a single to centerfield and stole second. Clint Witcher hit a single to right field to score Buckeye’s fifth run.

Ozburn struck out the next batter but intentionally waked Jacob Carter to load the bases for Adam Foster.

Foster struck out on a foul tip and attempted to run toward first, but couldn’t do so because the bases were loaded. He was out, but Nall came barrelling home anyway.

Caleb Vines — who had replaced Seth Barlow behind home plate — nearly threw to first base before realizing he could tag Nall out to end the game.

“I just aged five years,” Vidalia coach Johnny Lee Hoffpauir said after the play. “I was about to go tag the guy out myself. We went brain-dead, which caused them to go brain-dead, but it ended up in our favor — we recuperated faster.”

The Vikings would have been in trouble had it not been for a strong sixth inning.

Ben Parnham led off the sixth with a walk, and Caleb Vines advanced him with a well-placed bunt. Ozburn reached first on a fielder’s choice play that got Vines out at second, and Seth Thompson was intentionally walked to load the bases.

Jake Deweese then hit a single straight up the middle to score Parnham, and John Brixey’s fly out to left field scored Ozburn.

“Jake Deweese came up with a big hit for us when they walked to load the bases,” Hoffpauir said. “That was the hit we’ve been looking for all year.”

Seth Thompson started the game on the mound for Vidalia, pitching three innings and allowing three runs before Trey Lillie took his place.

Lillie threw three innings, giving up one run on three hits.

Ozburn earned one run on two hits with two walks and two strikeouts.

“We had it in mind that we were going to use three pitchers tonight, possibly four,” Hoffpauir said. “We had a real quick first inning so we got an extra inning out of Thompson, and then Lillie came in and did a good job of keeping his pitch count down. We couldn’t have drawn it up any better to get Mason in there to close the door.”

Thompson was also 2-for-3 at the plate, with a double and two RBI.

The Vikings recorded two errors in the game, both in the third inning.

Nall reached third and Witcher reached second on a pass ball, and two runs scored on a throwing error by shortstop Mason Ozburn to second base.

“It seems like that third inning is our Achilles’ heel every game,” Hoffpauir said. If we can get by the third inning we feel like we can survive. We made a couple errors and opened the door for them, but hey, that’s high school baseball.”

Barlow was replaced behind the plate in the ninth inning after taking a foul ball to his collarbone.

Hoffpauir said he would be taken to the doctor to be examined.

Vidalia (6-9, 1-1) travels to Bolton on Friday.