NATCHEZ — A five run third inning doomed the Cathedral Lady Wave Friday in Game 1 of the MHSAA Class 1A South State softball series.

Nanih Waiya jumped on the Lady Wave quickly en route to a 10-4 win.

“We just didn’t come to play today,” Cathedral head coach Gary Blackwell said. “We definitely didn’t come to play like we have the last four games. I don’t know exactly what it was, whether it was nerves or what, but we just couldn’t get anything going.”

The Lady Warriors found themselves in business early in the first after Cathedral starting pitcher Elizabeth Smith walked the first three batters of the game.

Brantlie Sheets was able to knock two runners in on a double, but Cathedral was able to get out of the inning trailing just 2-0.

Cathedral cut the lead to one in the second on a sacrifice fly, but the storm was brewing and the Lady Warriors erupted in the third.

After a leadoff single, Hope Thames hit a two-run home run to push the Nanih Waiya lead to 4-1. Sheets followed with a single, and Reagan Holdiness drew a walk after her.

Then, Marlee Parkes knocked in a run, Krysten Eaves added a run on a groundout and another run scored on a wild pitch to give the Lady Warriors a 7-1 lead.

The onslaught continued in the fourth with Mackenzie Johnson launching a two-run home run to increase the lead to 9-1.

Nanih Waiya added their final run in the fifth on an RBI-single.

The Lady Warriors pounded out 10 hits in the contest.

Cathedral was able to scratch across a run in the fifth on an error and two runs in the seventh, but it wasn’t enough to climb out of the hole.

“We knew they could hit,” Blackwell said. “But we have been able to the last few games, too. We scored 21 runs in the last two games. We just didn’t get the job done today.”

Now, the Lady Wave face elimination today as they travel to Nanih Waiya. Cathedral will have to win two games today to advance to the state championship series.

“It is going to be really tough,” Blackwell said. “But I know that we are a better team than we were today. We can do it. When we won state last time, the same thing happened. We lost in the first game and came back and won the next two. I hope that is a little incentive and we can get these girls fired up and ready to go.”