By TIM GUERCIO

The Natchez Democrat

VIDALIA — The Vidalia Vikings lost to district rival the Beekman Charter School Tigers Monday afternoon 6-2 at Cliff Merritt Memorial Field in Vidalia.

The loss brings the Vikings baseball record to 12-9 overall and now 5-4 in the district.

The Tigers record now stands at 17-5, with a record of 8-1 in the district, to lead the district. The Vikings are in third place in the district.

Both of these teams will be in the playoffs aiming for a state championship win.

Beekman and Vidalia will play again two more times before state championship play begins.

Vidalia will travel Thursday to Bastrop to play Beekman Charter at their field, then they will face off again Saturday in Vidalia.

“We split with them last year, won one, lost one,” Vidalia head coach Mike Norris said. “Brayden Spigner beat us last year, too, he threw 100 pitches tonight and 70% were strikes. He was getting all of his pitches over for strikes, the fastball, the curve and the change-up.”

Spigner pitched a complete game for the Tigers allowing 3 hits and had 8 strikeouts.

After having three up and three down innings in the second, the third and the fourth Spigner got a little loose and hit three batters in a row in the fifth, to allow the Vikings to get on the scoreboard with one run.

Tristan Weatherly started the game for Vidalia and also pitched a complete game.

He gave up 8 hits, walked 5 and struck out 3.

“We made a two out error in the second inning and got down 3-0, and we had to play catch up,” Norris said. “We are still learning how to have the will to win, when we get down in a game.”

Coach Jake Andrews of Beekman Charter said he knows this Vidalia team from last year.

“We have to play them two more games. All of the district games this year are three-game series,” Andrews said. “Brayden is a great competitor and he loves to play, we left him in to get the complete game.”

The winning pitcher was Spigner for Beekman Charter and the loss goes to Weatherly for Vidalia.