NATCHEZ — Heads up plays led to a 2-0 Cathedral Green Wave (22-5) victory against the Stringer Red Devils in Game 1 of the MHSAA Class 1A South State Championship Thursday night.

One of those heads up plays was made literally.

With a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning, Andrew Beesley led the inning off with one of his three singles. After stealing second base and advancing on an error, head coach Craig Beesley called a squeeze play to try and score his son.

Craig Bradley went to bunt in Andrew and missed on the attempt, leaving Andrew in a run down between third base and home. As Andrew cut for home, the Stringer third baseman threw to home plate, but he bounced the ball off the top of Andrew’s helmet, allowing Andrew to cross the plate safely.

“That was big,” Craig said. “The rule is to try and stand tall and run to the catcher. It’s something that we practice a lot, and it worked today.”

Besides a one-run first inning off a wild pitch in the first inning, that would be the only scoring to take place.

Cathedral’s Thomas Garrity pitched a four-hitter through seven innings, striking out six batters. Meanwhile, Stringer’s Trenton Stringer struck out nine Cathedral batters in a highly contested pitcher’s duel.

Craig knew going into the game that it would be tough to produce runs against a pitcher that’s posted a 0.43 ERA this season, and he was pleased with the way his team produced seven hits.

“We had some opportunities throughout the whole game to really put some runs on the board, but their pitcher was dominant,” Craig said. “He was hitting 88 and 89 (m.p.h.). I knew he would strike out a lot of us, but we scratched those two runs and made it hold up with good defense and pitching.”

Behind Andrew’s 3-for-3 performance, Brock Farmer executed offensively with two singles.

Stringer led off the sixth inning with a double for his team, and after advancing to third, the Red Devils were threatening with two outs.

Garrity collected himself on the pitcher’s mound and delivered three strikes to end the inning. With strike three called, Garrity leaped off of the pitcher’s mound and pumped his fist, screaming at his bench.

The Red Devils would threaten again with a leadoff single in the bottom of the seventh. Cathedral’s defense would step up. Craig Bradley dive at a lined shot toward second base, knocking it down and throwing the runner out at first to rob Stringer of a base hit. Following the ensuing infield putout, the game concluded.

Cathedral will play Game 2 at Stringer at 7 p.m. Saturday.