ST. CATHERINE, Ky. &045; A complete game from your pitcher, a rally late to get the win and no opening-game jitters &045;could you ask for anything more?

Not really, and Copiah-Lincoln’s baseball squad got all of that and more in a 7-3 win over Lenoir, N.C., in the first game of the super regional tournament at St. Catherine, Ky., Thursday. The Wolves got a complete game on the mound from Derek Thompson and two home runs in the seventh to break a 3-3 tie and break it open.

Former Cathedral standout Garrett Jones accounted for one of those jacks, and the Wolves will take it into today’s noon semifinal game against the winner of Itawamba and St. Catherine.

&uot;It’s like I told our guys afterward &045; we got our jitters out of the way,&uot; Co-Lin head coach Keith Case said. &uot;The first two innings (we scored three) but didn’t get what you’d like to get out of it. We had one ground ball out in six innings &045; just routine fly balls.

&uot;Finally we started hitting the ball on the line. I think when they tied it up, it kind of woke us up. But you can’t say enough about Derek and his outing. It was really good.&uot;

The Lancers trailed 3-0 early but bounced back with one in the fourth and two in the sixth to tie it up heading into the seventh. But before the seventh inning started, play was halted for one hour and 40 minutes in a rain delay.

The Lancers had been riding the arm of starter Michael Ogelsby, but they pulled him after the rain delay. Thompson, however, stayed in the game for the Wolves (28-25-1) and threw three shutout innings after the delay to keep them off the board.

Thompson allowed just six hits for the game, but most importantly he went the distance in the opener of the four-game tournament with the remainder of the staff rested a game in.

&uot;They had tied it up, and it as kind of like they had the momentum going,&uot; Case said. &uot;Thompson, probably in this case, the rain helped us. He was able to gain some energy, regroup and get a Snickers bar &045; it was almost like he was able to refuel. He pitched a great seventh, eight and ninth. That kind of put a damper on their momentum.&uot;

The Wolves answered in their first inning against reliever Jacob Allen to break the game open. Joseph Langham singled but got picked off for the first out, but Josh Logan followed with a single and stole second.

Xavier Qualls tripled in Logan for the first run and came around to score on an error on the play. Patrick Williams then slammed the next pitch for a solo homer to left, and Jones jumped on a 1-2 pitch to send it over the fence in left for another solo blast and a 7-3 lead.

Qualls finished the game with a single, double and triple with two runs scored and two runs batted in.

&uot;Allen &045; velocity-wise, he was near Ogelsby,&uot; Case said. &uot;Instead of a curveball, it was more of a slider. It was a hard-breaking ball. He didn’t have a whole lot of change of speed. We were looking form something hard.&uot;

The Wolves got a run in the first when Qualls scored on a passed ball. In the second, the Wolves got two as Logan’s sacrifice fly scored Ben Sandifer and Qualls doubled to score Scotty Smith.