By Jeff Byrd

The Vicksburg Post

VICKSBURG — Cathedral was three outs away from getting a tie for first place with St. Aloysius.

The Division 7-1A game was suspended in the bottom of the fifth inning with Cathedral leading 6-3. The Flashes (2-9, 2-0 7-1A) however, had the bases loaded, with no out when a flash of lightning stopped the Flashes’ momentum.

The game will resume from where it was stopped on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Chester-Willis Field in Natchez. Friday’s regularly scheduled game has been moved to Thursday and will immediately follow the conclusion of the suspended game.

Cathedral coach Craig Beesley was hoping starting pitcher Tyler Morrison could finish off the game. Instead he got into his second straight jam and was pulled for reliever Collin Hammons when the game was stopped.

“We knew we needed three outs, and we knew the weather was getting bad, but St. Al had a rally, and we had control issues on the mound and couldn’t put them away,” Beesley said.

Cathedral got two runs in the first inning off a pair of St. Al infield errors. Kyle Bradley and Rudy Lazerus scored and Blake Martin got an RBI off his single against St. Al starter Judson Gatling.

St. Al got a run in its half of the first when Gatling knocked in Carlisle Koestler on a sac fly. Cathedral answered with three runs in the top of the second. Caleb Upton singled with two out to score Thomas Garrity. Lazerus followed with a double to the left-center gap to plate David Huffines and Upton for a 5-1 lead.

The Green Wave extended the lead to 6-1 in the fourth when Upton singled in Bradley who had reached on a one-out single.

Morrison was effective for the first half of the game. He allowed just two hits through the first four innings and got out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth without any damage being done.

That was not the case in the fifth. St. Al got a walk by Koestler and a double from Matthew Foley to set up Gatling’s RBI single that made it 6-2. A walk to Josh Eargle was followed by a single from Neal Ricks that scored Foley to make it 6-3. Beesley pulled Morrison at that point and brought in Hammons.

Andrew Collins drew two balls before the game was stopped.