NATCHEZ — A slow start quickly turned into a blowout for the Cathedral Lady Wave in their game against St. Aloysius.

“At the beginning of the game, we missed eight shots under the basket,” Cathedral head coach Peter Arnold said. “But I kept telling them not to worry about it, because we weren’t going to keep missing.”

The Lady Wave wouldn’t, and would go on to beat St. Al handily, 67-33.

“We made a lot of mistakes on defense with rotations,” St. Al head coach Delvin Thompson said. “And once we were able to break their press, we didn’t capitalize.”

The Lady Wave pressed the majority of the game, something Arnold had planned to do.

“I wanted to go full court man, but didn’t want to jepordize getting us in foul trouble,” he said. “So we kept playing full court zone.”

Either way, it wouldn’t matter because the Lady Wave dominated the Lady Flashes in the rebounding department, getting second and third chance points frequently.

“I think we lost the game in rebounding,” Thompson said. “That was the difference in this game.”

At 13-9 going into the second quarter, the two teams were in a defensive deadlock. However, the Lady Wave would explode for 14 points in the second and limit St. Al to just five, giving Cathedral a 13-point lead going into halftime.

The lead would rarely shrink lower than that, and the Lady Wave put the game away in the fourth, outscoring St. Al 26-5 in the period.

“At the start of the fourth quarter we went full court man, got on a run, and that was it,” Arnold said.

Natalie Fletcher led the Lady Wave with 14 points. Caroline Kaiser and Lessley Dooley chipped in with 11 and 10 points, respectively.

For St. Al, Grace Upshaw had a team-high 11 points, with Brooklyn Breithaupt adding 10 of her own.

“Overall, it was a great start for our season,” Arnold said.

As for St. Al, Thompson said the Lady Flashes will continue to work.

“We didn’t quit in this one,” he said. “We should be better than we are, and we are going to get in the gym and put in the work to get better.”