VICKSBURG &8212; Every time Natchez Cathedral would claw back into Tuesday night&8217;s Region 7-1A game at St. Aloysius, the Flashes were there with an answer.

It&8217;s been a recurring theme for the Green Wave, who fell to their archrivals 68-56.

&8220;We had a mental lapse for a couple minutes at the end of the third and they got out to a 10-point lead,&8221; CHS coach

Peter Arnold said. &8220;I told our guys that we are fighting the battle to get to the top of the hump but we couldn&8217;t get over the hump.&8221;

Matt Goss paced Cathedral with 28 points and Juan Gray added 17 for Cathedral, but the Wave could not find a way to stop the inside-outside duo of John Robert Burnett and Marsh Willis.

Burnett scored a team-high 23 points and grabbed 11 rebounds and Willis added 20 points, including four 3-pointers.

Cathedral trailed 47-37 at the end of the third quarter and shaved the lead to 52-45 less than three minutes into the fourth quarter. A 3-pointer by Keylann Hinson forced St. Al (4-0, 13-4) into a timeout.

&8220;We turned it over the first two possessions after they jumped into a press,&8221; St. Al coach Drew McBrayer said. &8220;We had a couple lazy passes that they took advantage of. But we called time out and didn&8217;t have any trouble after that.&8221;

After the time out, St. Al scored six straight points to increase the lead back to 10 at 58-48.

&8220;Basketball is a game of spurts,&8221; McBrayer said. &8220;It can go in either direction and the key is to be able to stop that. We would get on a little run and then they would get on a run.&8221;

Cathedral got the game within six points late in the fourth quarter before Burnett snagged an offensive rebound off of a missed 3-pointer and scored giving the Flashes a 62-55 lead with two minutes to play.