Tristan Weatherly pitched the Vidalia High School Vikings through seven innings while multiple others made marvelous catches in the outfield to keep their team sailing with a perfect district record on the year.

Though Vidalia coach Mike Norris said he was pleased with his team’s defense on its way to a shutout win over Mangham Tuesday night, 4-0, there’s just one thing he said the Vikings still need to clean up.

“If you hit a fly ball in the infield on us, it’s always an adventure,” he said. “We still had a couple of those errors dropping them. It’s like a curse now.”

Senior first baseman Christian Fort was the first to drop a fly after tripping ever so slightly on the bag in the first inning.

Norris told his team in a huddle following three quick outs to end the frame to just shake it off.

“We’ve got it out of our system now,” he told the group.

Vidalia rallied with a string of hits in the bottom of the third inning to take a three-run lead, yet the doom wasn’t over for the dropped balls.

Nick Melton missed a pop up when it came down, hitting his hand in the process.

The following inning, Viking players held their breath as third baseman Leo Lozano shuffled his feet but ultimately came down with the catch.

The Vikings added another run in the fifth to seal the win as senior Cam Rodgers ended the night batting 2-for2 with two RBIs.

Rodgers and Weatherly battles to catch the final infield fly, turning their heads to the sky as it came down in the seventh inning.

Weatherly ended the night with eight strikeouts, while giving up just two hits that came in the seventh inning. He walked just one batter.

With the win Vidalia (16-9, 7-0) looks to face Mangham again on the road Thursday and at home again Saturday for a chance to clinch the LHSAA District 2-2A title.

“This was the week we had circled on our calendar,” Norris said. “We knew if we could sweep Mangham, we’d have a chance to win the district.”

And for the infield errors, Norris said he’ll simply have to find a different approach.

“We practice is every week,” he said. “I have to find something to do at practice to take the curse off the glove.”