NATCHEZ — A heartbreaking overtime loss against their bitter rivals might be enough to break many teams, especially teams with a 1-6 record.

But the Cathedral Green Wave aren’t like many teams. Instead of being broken by a 10-7 loss to St. Aloysius, the Green Wave bonded together even closer and rejuvenated their season.

And now, Cathedral stands on the brink of its first playoff berth since 2006.

The Green Wave (3-6, 3-3 Region 4-1A) need only a win over a struggling Salem team or a St. Al loss to district champion Sebastopol to clinch a playoff spot.

“We know if we win we’ll finish third in the district,” Cathedral coach Craig Beesley said. “We want to go in there (to Salem) with the mindset that we have to win to get in the playoffs. We know we can get in with a loss, but we don’t want to have that possibility.”

But what is now a probability is something that looked impossible just three weeks ago.

On a rainy Thursday night, the Green Wave suffered what seemed to be the death knell to its season, a 10-7 overtime loss to St. Al that dropped their overall record to 1-6 and region record to 1-3.

Beesley worried about how his team would respond to the loss, especially after last season, when Cathedral followed up another tough loss to their rivals with a 44-14 loss to Bogue Chitto.

But what he saw in practice the next week let Beesley know this year’s team was different.

“Believe it or not, it was the best week of practice we’ve had all year,” Beesley said. “It showed how hard these kids work and are continuing to work.”

Cathedral stunned Bogue Chitto 34-24 the following week and then passed Dexter 21-0 in a driving rainstorm to grab control of its playoff destiny.

Now, all Cathedral needs to do is beat a 2-7 Salem team that has scored a grand total of 62 points this season, an average of less than seven per game.

“We just have to take care of the football,” Beesley said. “We’ve got to score when we get in the red zone. We’ve done that the last couple of weeks and we need to make sure we continue to do that this week.”

And if the Green Wave can do that, they will have authored one of the great in-season turnarounds in the school’s recent history.

“These kids have never given up and always stayed positive,” Beesley said. “There were a lot of people questioning whether we could make the playoffs, but the kids kept working. They really turned it around and have put themselves in a good position now.”