NATCHEZ — Down a run in the top of the seventh inning with two runners on base, Trinity Episcopal Day School head softball coach Miranda Smith went with her instincts — send the runner.

Her ambition nearly pulled Trinity back, but it ended the game with the Saints coming up short.

After an errant throw over Cathedral pitcher Elizabeth Smith’s head, Smith waived a runner on third base towards home. However, the Lady Wave were able to field the ball and toss it to Smith who was waiting at home to tag out the runner and seal the 4-3 win for Cathedral.

“I made the choice to send her home on the last play with my best batter coming up,” Smith said. “I’ll take that loss. That is not their loss. That was the choice I made. As far as how they played, that was a win in my book.”

The Lady Saints jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first inning scoring on a sacrifice fly from Tali Beard and a single from Hannah Fitt.

“I’m an aggressive coach. I like to run the bases and swing at first strikes and that is what they were doing,” Smith said. “We are swinging the bats and want to hit the ball. We want to make them have to get us out.”

In the opposite dugout, Cathedral head coach Gary Blackwell wasn’t particularly pleased with his team’s performance.

“I take my hat off to Trinity, they came to play and we didn’t,” Blackwell said. “It was nice of course to get the win, but this is the worst performance we’ve had in a while.”

Blackwell’s team managed to claw back into the game, though, with a three-run third inning. Marty Lewis knocked in the first run with an RBI-single and Caroline Kaiser added a two-run single to swing the lead to the Lady Wave, 3-2.

Trinity answered in the top half of the fifth on an RBI-single from Tali Beard, but Baylee Granning broke the tie in the bottom of the inning on an inside the park home run, which eventually proved to be the game winning run.

“We’ve always been able to pull it together and pull back when we were down,” Blackwell said. “We just had a little rougher time doing it this time.”

Despite the loss, Smith said she hopes the game is a motivator for her team moving forward.

“My seniors are stepping up and my pitchers are stepping up,” she said. “We’ve had improvement and that is the name of the game.”

And although his team didn’t play up to expectations, Blackwell is hoping they can still take something from the game.

“I hope that we can learn from this and get ourselves back on track,” he said.