Vidalia cruises past non-district rivals Block and Sicily Island

Published 12:04 pm Wednesday, March 22, 2023

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VIDALIA — Vidalia High School pitcher T.J. Williams had a performance last Tuesday afternoon at the Concordia Recreation District 3 Complex that he will never forget. It was also one that the nearby rival Block High School Bears would rather forget.

In his first start on the mound as a part of the varsity roster, Williams threw a no-hitter, allowed one unearned run, and struck out eight batters while Jake Spears had a strong outing at the plate to lead the Vidalia Vikings to a 22-1 win over the Block Bears in just five innings.

“T.J.’s performance was excellent. That was his first high school start and he threw a complete-game no-hitter. Everybody was excited about that,” Vidalia head coach Seth Thompson said.

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Block scored its only run of the game in the top of the first inning. It was all Vidalia after that. The Vikings scored five runs in the bottom of the first inning to take the lead for good and then put the game completely out of reach with 17 runs in the bottom of the second. There was no other scoring after that.

“The kids had a lot of energy. They played hard. Swung the bat extremely well. Made a lot of hard contact. Ran the bases well,” Thompson said. “We played a complete game. Played good defense. Good pitching. When you score 22 runs on 12 hits, you’re swinging the bats well. It was a good day for us.”

Spears led the Vikings’ 12-hit attack by going 3-for-4 with a double and a triple. Clay Watts went 3-for-4 with a triple while Gabe Rushing was 2-for-3 and Gage Cupstid was 2-for-4. In addition to the 12 hits, they also took advantage of eight Block errors.

Vidalia (4-5) is scheduled to play at Georgetown High School at 4 p.m. Friday, if the weather permits.

Vidalia 16, Sicily Island 5 (5 innings; Mon. afternoon)

VIDALIA — Gage Cupstid went 2-for-4 with a double and Luke Williamson pitched four solid innings as the Vidalia High School Vikings beat the Sicily Island High School Tigers 16-5 last Monday afternoon at the Concordia Recreation District 3 Complex.

Vidalia got rolling early at the plate by scoring six runs each in the bottom of the first and second innings to take an early 12-0 lead. Then Williamson had some control issues in the top of the third inning and that allowed Sicily island to score four runs in the top of the third inning — none of them on a single base hit. In fact, the Tigers didn’t have a single hit the entire game.

“We didn’t give up any hits, but we did walk a good bit of people,” Thompson said. “We didn’t have our best pitching performance, but we kept our composure and played good defense.”

The Vikings answered with two runs in the bottom of the third and two more runs in the bottom of the fourth to go up 16-4.

And that was it for Thompson, who gave up four runs, two of them earned, on seen walks with four strikeouts over four innings. Clay Watts came on in relief to pitch the top of the fifth inning and he gave up one unearned run on one walk with three strikeouts.

Cupstid had the only extra-base hit and was the only multiple hitter for a Vidalia team that had eight total hits and took advantage of seven Sicily Island errors.

“They played hard. They had good at-bats. Put the bat on the ball and scored a bunch of runs,” Thompson said about his team.