NATCHEZ &045; Somewhere near the top of things Matthew Hall can live without is mustard.

When everyone on the Cathedral football team started sucking down the little packets Thursday night as a method to keep from cramping up, Hall politely declined. The senior cramped up just as much as everyone on the field, but he stuck with an old faithful &045; Gatorade &045; to help his team do something that he would have hated more than eating a jar of mustard.

That’s losing to St. Al.

Hall and the defense picked it up in the second half after the Flashes scored a touchdown on their opening drive to give Cathedral a 29-12 win over their Catholic school rival to open the season.

&uot;I don’t like mustard,&uot; Hall said. &uot;Mustard and pickle juice they say works, but I drink Gatorade. Both of my calves cramped up. I knew it was going to be hot. As much as we worked this summer and as much as we ran, I caught a second wind in the second half. It’s St. Al &045; you’ve got to play through it.&uot;

Hall and the rest of the team couldn’t stand for the way the Green Wave’s defense was struggling at times to stop the run. The Flashes out-gained Cathedral on the ground for the game and finished with over 200 yards, but they lost three critical fumbles and had an interception returned for a touchdown, a punt returned for a touchdown and 10 penalties in the first half.

Even when St. Al looked to grab some momentum in the second half, Cathedal just came up with some stops when it needed it and held on for the win.

&uot;We were trying to catch our second wind,&uot; Cathedral head coach Ken Beesley Sr. said. &uot;We’re glad to win, but we will be in better shape before we play Dexter (in two weeks). It could be my fault. It’s been so hot, and I probably didn’t make them run as much as they should have. Some people got hurt, and we had a few people go down.&uot;

The Flashes got their score at the start of the second half on a drive coaches feared would happen &045; an 84-yard, 11-play drive that chewed up nearly half the quarter.

The Flashes had the size advantage up front, and Alex Halinski finished off the drive with a 4-yard touchdown run to trim the lead to 21-12 at the 6:37 mark.

But from there the Flashes got very little on offense &045; the next drive ended in a punt after an intentional grounding call put them back 11 yards, and then Cathedral’s Kole Junkin recovered a fumble after Alex Halinski had rambled 12 yards.

It gave the Green Wave the ball at the St. Al 30, and Zak Calhoun ran it in on the second play for a 25-yard touchdown to put the lead at 29-12 at the 4:41 mark.

‘We probably didn’t play well in any phase of the game,&uot; St. Al head coach Jim Taylor said. &uot;It’s the real big two &045; blocking and tackling. We had two fumbles after first downs that I know of &045; and probably more than that. Some exchanges to the quarterback were dropped on the ground. We did it to ourselves. We didn’t do anything good.&uot;

The defensive effort in the second half was better after that first drive, and the Green Wave held St. Al to a three and out &045; the only time of the game &045; after Calhoun’s touchdown.

It was a big difference from the first half. Had the Flashes not shot themselves in the foot a few times, they could have had the lead.

&uot;Their line started pushing our defensive line in the second quarter,&uot; Beesley said.

&uot;But a lot of it was we weren’t doing a good job of tackling. We were hitting too high and not wrapping up. We started stunting on defense and shooting the gaps. We started running our outside linebackers around the sides, and we had a lot of success with that.&uot;

The Green Wave’s biggest defensive play, though, came just before the half when Kole Junkin picked off a short screen pass and returned it for a touchdown. The Flashes had gotten the ball back and Patrick McDonough ran in for a touchdown for Cathedral, and they got down to the CHS 16 as the clock was winding down.

Junkin, one of several talented freshmen on the Cathedral roster, took it 79 yards to the house with two seconds left.

&uot;It was just poorly executed on everybody’s part,&uot; Taylor said. &uot;That took the wind out of our sails. We were going to get the ball back coming in. We had a fumble where we could have scored. We ran out of timeouts there and were trying to hurry up. Instead of trying to run the play like it’s supposed to, we hurried it.&uot;

Cathedral got its first score when Taylor Brantley returned a punt 73 yards for a touchdown for a 7-6 lead with 9:19 left in the second.

Skylar Bacon later recovered a fumble when Jacob Cowart hit the quarterback, and the Green Wave punched it in when McDonough ran in from 6 yards out for a 15-6 lead with 3:25 left.