BROOKHAVEN &045; Just when there was a consistency brewing, the Natchez Major League All-Stars went quiet at the plate.

Summit came with a starter who served up a steady dose of fastballs Tuesday to send Natchez to an 7-1 defeat at the Dixie Youth District 6 tournament at Brookhaven. The loss sends the Natchez squad into the losers’ bracket and a bout with the Brookhaven Nationals, who eliminated the Brookhaven Americans with an 8-2 win Tuesday.

So after a night of striking out 12 times, Natchez knows what it has to do today in order to have another shot at Summit in the finals.

&uot;We’re going to have our hands full, but if we play well, we’ll win,&uot; Natchez head coach Alan Dossett said. &uot;It all comes down to hitting. If we hit the ball, our pitching and defense will hold up. We’ve got to put the ball in play, and it’s as simple as that.&uot;

Summit tagged on some quick runs off Natchez ace starter Cody Floyd, and it couldn’t answer but with one run in the fifth thanks to a Daniel Jenkins double. The team’s only other hit was a Jeb White single.

&uot;That guy was about 5-10, 210 pounds, and he threw the ball hard,&uot; Dossett said. &uot;He didn’t have much of a breaking ball, but he threw hard. We played well at times, and we looked like we hadn’t played at all at times. Any time you have 12 strikeouts, you’re not going to win. This kid had a good overhand fastball. He probably didn’t throw five breaking pitches the whole game.&uot;

Floyd didn’t allow but three hits, but two of them landed on the other side of the fence as Summit took a 3-0 lead in the second inning. The first run came around on a solo homer, and later after the lead got to 4-1 another player turned a double into an inside-the-park homer when the throw from the outfield missed the cutoff man.

Floyd threw four innings, and Colin Dollar finished it out in relief.

&uot;Summit has some big ol’ boys,&uot; Dossett said. &uot;We’ve been used to a low strike zone, and blue was calling chest-high strikes and wasn’t giving us anything low. We’d throw the ball well. We had a couple of mental errors and a couple of throwing errors. But that’s not to take anything away from Summit. They’ve got a good team.&uot;