NATCHEZ — The Cathedral baseball team played just its second game since March 9, and the rust showed in a 9-5 win against West Lincoln Tuesday night.

The Green Wave left nine runners on base with seven hits, and got a lot of help from West Lincoln in scoring runs.

The Bears walked in three Cathedral runs in the bottom of the sixth inning, effectively giving away the game.

“It wasn’t a very good performance baseball-wise,” Cathedral coach Craig Beesley said. “We just didn’t look good tonight, didn’t look sharp. I know we’ve been off for a long time, but I don’t think we played with the mental edge that we needed, or the physical edge.”

Tuesday’s game was almost canceled as well when strong storms rolled through earlier in the day.

But the hard work of Green Wave players’ parents and friends got the field ready to play just before game time. They carried water off the field in six-gallon buckets all afternoon.

“We took 600 to 700 gallons of water off the field today,” Beesley said. “It was unbelievable. We couldn’t have done it without the hard work of those people.”

The Green Wave also got some hard work from pitcher Preston Edwards, who pitched his first complete game of the season and gave up just two hits.

He walked five and struck out eight but earned just one of the Bears’ runs.

“Preston does a good job when he has to, but he gets behind the count a lot,” Beesley said. “He threw a lot of pitches tonight, and I was hoping he could keep his pitch count down. He had a little trouble with his control, but that comes with time on the mound in live action.”

Cathedral hasn’t gotten much of that lately, with most of its games rained out.

The cobwebs showed at the plate. Although Tyler Ballard had a double and a single, he was one of just two players with multiple hits, going 2-for-2 with two walks.

Aaron White was 2-for-4.

The Green Wave was up by just one run before the the sixth inning, when Matt Magee and Nathaniel Pruski combined to walk in three runs.

“They had trouble throwing strikes,” Beesley said of West Lincoln. “They walked a couple of our batters, and that helped us out because we were struggling to get some hits tonight at crucial times. We left a lot of people on base in key situations, and we’re lucky to come away with the win tonight.”

With no outs in the fifth inning, Ballard hit his triple and Daniel Jenkins reached on a fielding error by the shortstop. Dylan White hit a fielder’s choice ball to the pitcher, who caught Ballard in a rundown between third and home.

White was out on a fielder’s choice play at second in the next play, and Hunter Foster popped up foul to end that inning.

The Bears scored two runs in the fourth when Tyler Case reached on a fielding error by third baseman Cole Mann and Zach Williams walked. Mann scored on a pass ball by Jenkins before Williams scored on a sacrifice fly.

The Green Wave scored five runs in the second inning on three hits and an error. The first three batters of the inning walked.

Jenkins threw out three runners at second base, including one on a double play to end the sixth inning when Jeremy Buckley struck out and James Magee was caught stealing.

“I’m glad to see us have a close game and have to work and make the plays, but I’m not pleased with the performance tonight,” Beesley said.

The Green Wave (12-0, 7-0) travel to take on West Lincoln at 7 p.m. Friday. Since Cathedral has a 4-run cushion in the series between the two teams, West Lincoln would have to win by 5 runs Friday to take the lead in the district.