TYLERTOWN — Cathedral School had its back against the wall on the road at Dexter High School Friday night, and the Green Wave put one of its best performances of the season together to stay alive in the postseason race.

The Green Wave defense held Dexter to 18 points, and the offense found its balance and ran and passed for four touchdowns in a 28-18 win.

“This was a big (win), especially down at Dexter,” Cathedral head coach Ron Rushing said. “It’s a hard place to play, and they’ve owned us the last three games. It was a big win for this team to go down and win this game.”

The Cathedral rushing game led the way with 227 yards on the ground. But quarterback Thomas Garrity and his receivers managed to make some big plays in the passing game as well.

“The offense made some plays tonight,” Rushing said. “We caught some balls, and the receivers made some people miss. We were expecting to get in there and run the ball at them, but we hopped into our spread stuff, and saw some things that were there. Thomas stayed in the pocked and threw the ball exceptionally well.”

Garrity connected on 7-of-12 passes for 173 yards and two touchdowns. Christian Jenkins led the running attack with 109 yards on 25 carries and a touchdown.

Rushing said he was proud of the way Cathedral played defense again this week.

“We started off slow, but we played great on defense all night,” he said. “We gave up a couple of big plays, but we played really good. We’ve been playing good all year (defensively).”

Cathedral had three running backs carry almost the entire load Friday night. Brandt Pugh rushed for 70 yards, and Kyle Bradley rushed for 45 and a touchdown to go along with Jenkins’ production.

“All three backs moved the chains at times, and all three ran the ball extremely well,” Rushing said.

Dexter scored first in the second quarter on a 3-yard pass from Clifford Fernandez to Kendarius Lenoir. The extra point failed, and Dexter led 6-0.

Cathedral answered with a 3-yard run by Jenkins, and placekicker Dale Matheney made his kick to give the Green Wave the lead.

Garrity found Parker Rymer for a 65-yard touchdown pass early in the second half to stretch the lead, but the kick was blocked.

The Bulldogs got their chance to tie the game after Fernandez found Vonta Owens on a 2-yard touchdown strike, but the two-point conversion failed, and Cathedral led 13-12.

Cathedral answered Dexter’s score in less than two minutes when Bradley scored on a 13-yard touchdown run.

The Green Wave put the game away midway through the fourth when Garrity and Bradley connected again, this time for 17 yards.

A late Dexter touchdown pass from Fernandez to Owens was not enough for the Bulldogs, and Cathedral escaped Tylertown with a 10-point win.

Cathedral (5-3, 4-3) will take on Hinds AHS (5-4, 3-4) next week.