The Vidalia Vikings came up short in the championship game of the Vidalia Classic as they fell to Pineville High School 7-2 Saturday night.

“The hardest thing to do is win your own tournament when you are hosting,” Viking head coach John Lee Hoffpauir said.

Pineville went ahead early by scoring one run in the top of the first inning, then added three more in the top of the third.

The Rebels then added three more additional runs in the top of the fifth inning to take a commanding 7-0 lead over the Vikings. But Vidalia tried to bounce back in the bottom of the sixth inning by scoring two runs to cut the lead to five with one inning to play. Despite holding the Rebels scoreless in the top of the seventh, the Vikings failed to generate any offense of their own, and fell by the final of 7-2.

“The guys played their hearts out, and I am proud of them,” Hoffpauir said. “We’ll try it again next week.” Vidalia will host the Vidalia Invitational next weekend.

Hoffpauir said he was pleased with the way the Vidalia Classic went, and said thank you to everbody involved, the teams, the fans and especially his assistant coaches.

“They did a tremendous job for me this week,” he said.

Hoffpauir also thanked everyone who helped and supported the Vidalia Classic. He said the Vikings could not have put on the tournament without those people.

To get to the championship game, Vidalia needed some late game heroics to get past West Feliciana in their semifinal match up to play Pineville.

Beau Doughty, who was 2-4 at the plate, provided the late lift in the bottom of the seventh inning with a game winning single to right field to give the Vikings a 3-2 win over the Saints. The game-winning run was scored by Hunter Martin.

“It was a hard fought game,” Vidalia assistant coach Gary Parham said. “We stayed in it and kept fighting. The biggest key for us was we kept fighting.”

Parham said the Vikings’ pitching and defense also did a good job in the winning effort.

“We were able to pitch out of several scoring situations on defense. Several big catches saved runs while runners were in scoring position,” he said.

Vidalia scored one run in the first inning and one in the second to take an early lead. But the Saints slowly got back in the game by scoring one run in the top of the fourth inning, and tied the game 2-2 in the top of sixth when Matt Coleman singled to score Mikey Hains.

Unfortunately for the Saints, they could not stop the Vikings in the bottom of the seventh and lost by one run in the bottom of the final inning to a walk off single.

“We just didn’t do what we need to do to win. We didn’t execute,” Saint assistant coach Jack Hains said. “We left too many runners in scoring position.”

Jake Deweese, who took the mound in the sixth inning and had no strikeouts and allowed one walk, picked up the win for the Vikings, while Mikey Hains pitched a complete game for the Saints, and took the loss.