NATCHEZ — After six-and-a-half hours and 57 total runs, the Trinity Saints did what they had to do to stay in contention for the District 3-AA championship.

After dropping the first game of a doubleheader to Prairie View 17-10, the Saints came back to post a 20-10 victory in the second game to win two-out-of-three in the series with the Spartans.

Trinity defeated Prairie View 14-2 on Monday.

“The way we were looking at it, to win district — whether we took two-out-of-three or swept Prairie View — we were going to have to sweep our series next week (against Adams County Christian),” Trinity coach Matt Mason said. “It was important to get two-out-of-three this week.”

After dropping the first game, the Saints recovered in game two, scoring seven runs in the first inning and six more in the second to jump out to a 13-5 lead.

Trinity was the beneficiary of seven first-inning walks by Prairie View starting pitcher Matt Reed.

R.J. Fleming and Jordan Dossett made the Spartans pay, as they each had hits that drove in two runs each. Fleming’s was a single and Dossett’s a double.

Trinity scored six more in the second, highlighted by a two-run single by Dossett and run-scoring hits by Jake Winston, Fleming and Wells Middleton. Givonni Dent also had a sacrifice fly to score another run.

But while Trinity was scoring runs, their pitchers were giving them up almost as fast.

Starting pitcher Trevor Faust barely got out of the second inning and was pulled with no outs in the third.

Faust gave up five runs in the second, including a long two-run homer to Robby Jones.

Faust gave up two more runs in the third before being replaced by Dent.

Dent recorded two outs but allowed another run to score, making the score 13-8, and was removed with the bases loaded.

Winston then came in and settled things down quickly.

Winston induced a groundout to end the inning and pitched the final three innings, allowing just two runs, with those coming on a two-run shot from Hunter Smith in the sixth.

“I was really pleased with Jake,” Mason said. “There wasn’t a lot of good pitching, but he was the bright spot tonight. He battled and did really well.”

Trinity added one run in the bottom of the third when Dossett walked with the bases loaded before ending the game with six runs in the bottom of the sixth.

Dossett completed his masterful performance at the plate in that inning with a three-run double.

The junior had eight RBI’s in the game.

Prairie View pitchers walked 19 Trinity batters and hit two more. Saints leadoff hitter Kent King walked all six times he came to the plate.

“Kent’s job is to get on base, and he did that tonight,” Mason said. “He didn’t play selfish. He put the team first by getting on base, and he scored runs.”

The second game of the doubleheader was a nice recovery after Trinity suffered a bad loss in the opener.

Prairie View scored nine runs in the top of the first inning and never looked back in the 17-10 victory.

Trinity did recover to score six runs in the bottom of the second and cut the lead to 9-7, but Prairie View outscored the Saints 8-3 the rest of the way to post the victory.

The only bright spot in the first game was a two-run homer by Faust.

The doubleheader split puts Trinity’s overall record at 10-7 and its district record at 6-3.

The Saints play a non-district game with Huntington on Monday before opening up a crucial series with ACCS.

The Saints will host the Rebels for one game on Tuesday and then play a doubleheader at ACCS on Friday.

Huntington 11, WCCA 4

The Huntington Hounds put together a complete game against Wilkinson County Christian to secure a tied for second place in MPSA District 6-A and knock the Rams out of contention.

Jordan Wilson took the win for the Hounds, who are 3-3 in district play.

“Wilson pitched an exceptional game for us,” said coach Leo Eliser. “He couldn’t have thrown but 88 pitches, and he had 14 strikeouts.”

Wilson also went 2-for-4 with a double at the plate, and Joey Roberts hit a triple on his way to a 5-for-5 night.

“I thought we played a real good game,” Eliser said. “The kids played well — they bunted when they were supposed to; they got the big hits. They finally played the ball they were capable of playing.”

Huntington will travel to Tensas Academy — the team it’s tied with — Tuesday.