Natchez 10s lose opening game

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, June 29, 2010

BUDE — While the Lincoln County Americans were able to take advantage of their scoring opportunities, the Natchez 10-year-old All-Stars were not.

The result was an 11-1 win by the Lincoln County Americans in just four innings Monday afternoon in the first round of the sub-district tournament.

Dre Melton hit a solo home run off starting and winning pitcher Marcus Bridges in the top of the first inning. That would be all the scoring by Natchez.

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“We just did not hit the ball. We had three hits. We can’t win with three hits and score one run,” Natchez coach Josh Hargon said. “The other team hit the ball. All 12 batters had hits. They were more aggressive than us.”

The Lincoln County Americans took the lead for good with a five-run rally in the bottom of the first inning. They would tack on four runs in the bottom of the third inning and then ended the game via the 10-run mercy rule by scoring two runs in the bottom of the fourth.

Natchez had a couple of chances during the game to put more runs on the board when it had the bases loaded with two outs. However, both times a Natchez batter would strike out looking.

“We actually hit (Bridges), but not very hard. It was always at someone,” Hargon said. “We made a few errors, but they didn’t hurt us. They hit the ball well.”

Natchez will look to keep its season alive when it takes on the loser of the Franklin County-Wesson game in an elimination game today at 6 p.m.