HATTIESBURG — It didn’t take long for the Natchez 12-year-old All-Stars to regroup at the 2011 Mississippi Majors South Regional Tournament.

Thanks to four home runs and solid pitching, Natchez stayed alive in the tournament with a resounding 17-1 win over Moss Point in four innings Saturday morning at Larry Doleac Youth Baseball Complex.

“They came in this morning with their heads up. They were having a good time. They had a good batting practice,” Natchez 12s coach Gary Farmer said.

And that batting practice carried over to the game itself. Moss Point could do nothing to stop Natchez.

Reed White singled and Brock Farmer homered to give Natchez a 2-0 lead. It would increase to 3-0 before Moss Point went to bat. Moss Point scored its only run of the game in the bottom of the first.

Natchez scored two runs in the top of the second inning and then broke the game wide open with an eight-run barrage in the top of the third. Three-run home runs from Gage Dossett and Dalvion Jackson highlighted the third inning for Natchez.

The top of the fourth inning saw Natchez pile on four more runs for a commanding 17-1 advantage. During that frame, Jackson hit his second three-run homer of the game.

Farmer, Jackson and White each went 2-for-3 while both Jace Calcote and Cole Mosby had a double.

“Brock’s home run set the tone. They were having a good time in the dugout,” Farmer said. “Ten hits and four home runs is the way Natchez does it. Our pitching was good. We got to pitch a lot of guys to save a lot of innings.”

Brock Farmer was the winning pitcher despite being on the mound for only one inning. He allowed one run on no hits with one strikeout. White pitched two shutout, no-hit innings to keep the team’s no-hit bid alive. Jackson came in and didn’t allow a hit. Moss Point broke up the no-hit bid with a single off Calcote.

“All the pitchers threw well. We were able to save some pitchers,” Farmer said.

Oddly enough, Natchez was playing on the same field where on Friday afternoon it lost a heartbreaker to the Petal Nationals on a three-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the sixth inning — Field 4.

The game was originally scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. Saturday, but concerns about the weather forced tournament directors Keith Greenlee and Tony Muli to start all four of the day’s games five hours earlier.

But more rain in Hattiesburg forced the loser’s bracket game between West Jasper and the Hattiesburg Americans to be postponed until 2:30 p.m. Farmer said that the Natchez-Moss Point game ended just minutes before the skies opened up at the ballpark.

“We were very fortunate. The clouds were rolling in just as the umpire called the game because of the 10-run rule. If it was going on 10 minutes later, we would have been in a delay,” Farmer said.

Natchez will take on the winner of the Hattiesburg American-West Jasper game today at 3 p.m. The game can be heard on 97.3 FM.