The Tarboro Vikings baseball team improbable season ended with a 5-3 loss to the West Stokes Wildcats Friday in the first round of the state playoffs.

West Stokes (24-3) overpowered the young Vikings collecting nine hits while giving up only two.

“They were not 24-3 by accident,” Miller said about the Wildcats. “They are a good team. I would be surprised if they didn’t go far in the playoffs. But I liked the way that we played them. We didn’t give up.”

Matt Boykin was the losing pitcher. Boykin was relieved by Kyle Norville in the fourth inning.

The Vikings (16-7) runs were sporadic throughout the game. In the first inning Bellamy reached first base on balls. The junior center fielder stole second and third bases placing him in scoring position. Bellamy scored the first run of the game off a wild pitch to take a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the third inning Vikings junior Linwood Thorne led off with a walk. After advancing to third base, Thorne scored on a sacrifice fly by junior Drew Davis and the Vikings trailed 3-2.

Senior Nick Cannon ended his career as a Viking with a solo home run in the seventh inning for the Vikings final run of the season. The homer was the senior right fielder’s eighth of the season.

Cannon is one of three seniors on the Vikings’ team. Jacob Parisher and Kyle Coker also played their last game of their Vikings career.

“I’m very pleased with out seniors,” Miller said. “They were not only good baseball players they are good kids. They will be missed.”

The Vikings made a drastic improvement from by winning eight games more than last season. The Vikings began the season by winning seven out of the first 10 games by 10 runs of more.

Once the Vikings began playing in the competitive Eastern Plain Conference, the losses began to pile up. Tarboro fel prey to conference foe leaders North Lenoir and North Pitt twice and Farmville Central handed the Vikings a tough loss during the final game of the regular season.

Miller is already looking at next season.

“I’m not trying to take anything from the (non-conference) teams that we played, but we may look at playing a tougher schedule than we did this season,” Miller said. “I’m not saying that we’re all that but our conference is so tough. We need to play tougher opponents so that we can be ready when we start conference play. It will make us better.”