The almost daily showers and cold weather of late have been bad enough for teams trying to start their baseball season.

But Cathedral’s Green Wave is in the most precarious situation.

The Wave has yet to play its first game of the 2003 season and endured its fourth rainout so far. Monday’s game with West Lincoln was initially to be the Division 6-1A opener, but rain made it a wash, as was most of the baseball scheduled for Monday in the Miss-Lou.

Trinity Episcopal got its game in, but the Saints had to go to Chamberlain-Hunt to do it after the game was first scheduled in Natchez. The Wildcats won, 10-6.

The Green Wave will make up its game against West Lincoln March 24.

&uot;Some alumni said we’ve never gone into Spring Break without playing one game,&uot; Cathedral head coach Craig Beesley said. &uot;That’s been since 1972. We’ve been practicing for six weeks now, and we’re ready to play somebody. It’s been a long six weeks of practice.&uot;

The Green Wave had its game with Natchez High scratched twice along with its game at Jena last week. The game against Natchez will be made up at 6 p.m. Wednesday, but the forecast for that day doesn’t look good.

What looks worse than that is the Green Wave could play its first game Thursday against division rival St. Aloysius if the NHS game get scratched.

&uot;That is something we really don’t want to do, but there’s nothing we can do about it,&uot; Beesley said. &uot;It’s backing us up later in the year. We’re having trouble finding days to play with the other teams. What really hurt us was we didn’t get to play this weekend and all the other teams did. Everybody has kind of gotten a head start.&uot;

The Vidalia Vikings, meanwhile, had its Monday game against Kinder at Louisiana College scratched due to rain. But that might have been a good thing following their three-game sweep at the Mangham tournament Friday and Saturday to win the championship.

The Kinder game &045; a rematch of the 1996 Class 2A championship &045; may be made up later in the season. The Vikings are set to play again at 5:30 p.m. Friday against Bunkie in the Bolton tournament.

&uot;I was doing a rain dance today,&uot; Vidalia head coach Johnny Lee Hoffpauir said. &uot;We ran out of pitching. We had none left. I’m looking at the weather channel right now, and we’ve got a chance of rain coming in Wednesday and Friday. We get one day of dry weather and two or three days of rain. We’re in the first week of the season, and we’ve already had two rainouts.&uot;

The Vikings played through the rain and cold weather Saturday to hammer Oak Grove and Mangham to win the championship. The Vikings battered Oak Grove 12-5 in the first game before taking a 14-6 win over the Dragons in a game that ended after midnight Sunday.

The Vikings homered three times in each game, and Trey White and Matt Hinson slapped a homer in each game. Vidalia finished the day with 20 hits.

&uot;We faced a pretty good pitcher Friday night,&uot; Hoffpauir said. &uot;He really shut our bats down. I told our kids our bats would come around. I think they took my word. We got good pitching out of Mac Ware and really hit the ball pretty well at this time of the year. With the conditions we were playing in &045; cold and wet &045; not hitter’s weather, but the kids played through it.&uot;

The Saints traveled to Port Gibson to play, and even there the rain came down intermittently &045; just not enough to call it.

In their first game of the season, the Saints yielded a six-run third inning before three in the top of the fourth and fifth before the game ended. The Wildcats answered with three in the bottom of the fourth and one in the fifth to take the win.

The Saints got three in the fourth as Walt Ketchings doubled home Sam Couvillion, Ketchings scored on a passed ball and Ryan Rachal scored on a passed ball.

In the fifth Gregory Ketchings walked, stole second, went to third on a balk and scored on a passed ball. With two outs Brandon Geter reached on an error, Rachal walked and Andy Moon singled home both to cut the lead 9-6.

Huntington, meanwhile, went up to Porter’s Chapel and dropped a 4-1 decision after the game was initially scheduled for the Hounds’ home field.

The Eagles scored one run in the bottom of the second off Huntington starter Kyle Johnson, who was lifted after the second due to pitch count. Bronson Rhodes came in and gave up a two-run homer to Humphrey Barlow in the fifth after the Hounds got a bases-loaded walk to score Zack Calhoun in the fourth to tie it up.

&uot;We’re playing better,&uot; Huntington coach Michael McAnally said. &uot;We’ve got to find a way to clutch up and get some hits. Tonight we left the bases loaded twice.&uot;