VICKSBURG &045; Folks from Cathedral and St. Aloysius will disagree on plenty of things, but there’s one area they might find common ground on.

When the Green Wave and Flashes get together on the diamond, it brings out the best &045; and sometimes worst &045; in the two teams.

Both teams had their share of ups and downs Thursday night at Bazinsky Field &045; much like the season opener at Chester Willis Field &045; before the Flashes held on for a 14-9 win to claim the District 7-1A championship.

Both teams combined for 25 hits and seven errors, but the Green Wave had the most of both &045; including three in a 10-run St. Al third inning &045; before dropping its first division game of the season.

The Green Wave will open up the Class 1A playoffs against St. Joseph of Greenville.

&uot;They hit the ball well, and they’re a good hitting team,&uot; Cathedral left fielder Chris Norris said. &uot;We hope to see them later in the playoffs and show them what we’re capable of. It’s hard to take when you out-do them in every aspect of the game except where it needs to be &045; on the scoreboard. If we could have held them to five or six runs, we would have won the game.&uot;

Give the Flashes credit for taking advantage of situations at key points in the game and keeping their focus when things started to go bad. The Flashes made their mistakes as well after the Green Wave cut a 10-run lead down to five to make a game out of it.

But when it counted they stayed tight to take the win over their Catholic school rival.

&uot;We weren’t worried about the rivalry as much as coming here, trying to do the things that got us here, play good defense and when you go to the plate make the other team pay when they make mistakes,&uot; St. Al head coach Joe Graves said. &uot;It was another classic game.&uot;

The Flashes broke the game open in the third when they scored 10 runs on just three hits. They went through three Cathedral pitchers, scored two runs on bases-loaded walks and four errors that kept the inning alive and turned Beesley’s stomach.

The Flashes sent 10 men to the plate before Cathedral recorded an out.

&uot;It’s one of those things this year,&uot; Cathedral head coach Craig Beesley said. &uot;We’ve had innings like that. Once they put runners on, we got in trouble. We needed to get an out. Everything was kind of going downhill from there.&uot;

Walker Hengst singled in a run off Cathedral starter Jeremy Davis, who was pulled for freshman right-hander Corey Walker. An error on a ball hit by Drew Mazzanti brought another run home, and a walk, an error and another walk forced home three errors and Walker to exit.

Te Riley came in to pitch, and he walked Alex Frisbee to score Mazzanti for a 7-3 St. Al lead. Charlie Amborn singled home two runs, and two more runs scored on sacrifice flies for a 13-3 St. Al lead.

&uot;They scored 10 runs, and we just couldn’t make an out,&uot; Norris said. &uot;Errors were a factor. We did a good job of coming back, but it’s hard to come back from a 10-run deficit in the middle of the game. We did a good job with the bats, but walks and errors were killing us. We slacked off at times, but overall I think we’re stepping up and doing a better job.&uot;

The Green Wave, however, didn’t roll over and kept the Flashes from ending the game early. Norris scored in the fourth on a sacrifice fly from Brent Tosspon, and Riley doubled in the fourth before coming all the way around on two St. Al errors.

Davis then launched a solo homer, and Riley scored on a sacrifice fly to trim the lead to 13-7. In the sixth the Wave scored two more as Riley singled in Michael Blain and Garrett Jones scored on a fielder’s choice to trim it to 14-9.

&uot;I told my guys to relax and give your pitcher some support,&uot; Graves said. &uot;Cathedral is as good a hitting team as there is in the state. You’ve got to give them a lot of credit. Coach Beesley does a good job with those guys. We’re were just fortunate to have one big inning, and that was pretty much the nail in the coffin a little bit.&uot;