FERRIDAY, La. &045; It seemed like a bad western during the opening game of the District 5 South Sub-district Minor League Tournament out at George Perry Field Sunday.

Opponents staring each other down, wondering who’d make the first move.

Unfortunately for the Winnsboro All-Stars this wasn’t &uot;The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,&uot; it was Stephen King’s &uot;Puppet Master&uot; with the Vidalia All-Stars pulling the strings in an 18-8 victory to advance into a winner’s bracket matchup with Catahoula at 6 p.m. today.

&uot;This is a tremendous group of boys that play so well as a team,&uot; Vidalia head coach Tam Winston said. &uot;Sometimes they don’t get along, so they don’t play well. But when they play together we’re the team to beat.&uot;

Getting half of its total eight hits

from the No. 11- and 13-hole batters, Vidalia used its patience at the plate and craftiness on the base paths to breeze by Winnsboro.

From its opening at-bat, Vidalia displayed aggressiveness running the bases, forcing Winnsboro into errors.

With runners at the corners and one out, Winnsboro starter Mark Liles first pitch to Dillon Parker rolled to the backstop where catcher Casey Crum retrieved it and attempted to burn Holden Hill, who was straying farther and farther from third base.

Crum’s throw sailed into left field, allowing both Hill and Chris Cox, who booked it from first, to cross home plate for the early 2-0 advantage.

&uot;A lot of guys were real nervous, and that put a lot of pressure on other players,&uot; Winnsboro head coach Mark Liles said. &uot;We made too many errors. We got to play good baseball. Without the errors, who knows, it might’ve been a different ball game.&uot;

Vidalia’s Matt Souderas and Brennon Evjen each collected the first of two hits in the second inning with runs scoring on the plays to put the All-Stars up 6-0.

More feistiness from Vidalia runners in the forms of Jake Winston and Hill, who both scored from third on past balls, pushed the lead out to 9-0.

For two innings it was all Vidalia needed, as Jake Winston controlled the Winnsboro bats, allowing one run and striking out five of the six outs he retired.

&uot;Our starting pitcher (Jake Winston) got us up with a 9-0 lead,&uot; Tam Winston said. &uot;That got the job done for us. Dillon Parker did a great job in relief for us. Holden (Hill) only gave up one hit, but he walked a number of batters.

&uot;Dillon came in and got us out of a jam.&uot;

With a 12-1 lead, Hill was brought out to start the third inning against Winnsboro in order to conserve Jake Winston’s pitch count.

Hill promptly walked the bases loaded, and then spun around to see Winnsboro shortstop Christopher Austin send his pitch into center field for a double to score a pair of runs and cut the deficit to 12-3.

After immediately getting the first out of the inning with a strikeout following Austin’s two-bagger, Hill walked Nathan Gallup and Ray Mejias to get the hook when Parker replaced him.

Mason Liles nubbed Parker’s third pitch into a coffin’s corner between the mound and first base. Liles made it to the bag safely, collected two RBIs on the play and suddenly we had ourselves a 12-7 ball game.

&uot;The group kind of settled down after the opening jitters,&uot; Mark Liles said. &uot;They stopped looking in the stands and calmed down a good bit.&uot;

But just as the Winnsboro offense was coming together Parker got the next two batters to strike out to end the threat and leave Liles stranded.

A sore subject afterward for Tam Winston was his team’s attitude in the batter’s box. However, when the Vidalia All-Stars needed hits most it got them in the fourth to put Winnsboro away.

Evjen singled to open the inning, and advanced to second on a past ball. After Jake Winston flied out, Hill and Dee Fleming picked up RBI-infield hits to put Vidalia up 14-7.

The All-Stars finished how they started by scoring their last two runs on one past ball.

&uot;We’re going to have to improve at hitting the ball a little better,&uot; Tam Winston said. &uot;We really didn’t see any quality pitching today. We scored most of our runs on walks and running the bases.

&uot;We’ve got a good hitting team, and with our defense and pitching we should be the dominant team. We just didn’t hit well today.&uot;

South Franklin 6, Ferriday 5

Ferriday, La. &045; South Franklin All-Star Kyle Davis, who collected two singles, scored, what would prove to be the, winning run in the top of the sixth to complete the come-from-behind victory Sunday.

Each team managed just two hits in the affair that was strictly a pitcher’s duel in the early innings.

Ferriday’s Cole Murray scored the game’s first run in the bottom of the second without the help of a hit.

That lead stood for an inning-and-a-half when South Franklin jumped atop 2-1 when Garrett Jones and Gregory Parks crossed the plate.

The lead see-sawed back to the Ferriday All-Stars in its half of the fourth when Tyler Trant, Murray and Brandon Horne reclaimed the advantage 4-2.

After South Franklin scored three of its own in the top of the fifth to surge ahead, Ferriday’s Nick Blake tripled and scored to tie the game at 5-apiece.