MIZE &045; Here’s where pitching depth really makes a difference.

The Cathedral Green Wave rolled out No. 2 starter Corey Walker to open the best-of-three playoff series with Mize on Monday, and the sophomore tossed a two-hitter to top Mize ace Josh Melton for a 10-4 Cathedral win.

Now the two teams will go at 6 p.m. today at Chester Willis Field. The Green Wave will go with ace Te Riley, and the Bulldogs have to go with their No. 2 starter.

&uot;Corey had a good night,&uot; Cathedral head coach Craig Beesley said. &uot;He started off kind of slow and didn’t have much zip on the ball, but it looked like he got stronger as the game went on. His fastball kind of picked up late in the game.

&uot;Hopefully we can take the game (today). We’ll have Te, but you never know in the playoffs. But we’ll be throwing our No. 1 against their No. 2. Things look good for us, but we’ve still got to come ready to play.&uot;

Walker ended the game throwing 134 pitches, but he struck out 11 and walked three on the road against a team people were labeling as one of the favorites to win the whole thing.

He yielded the two hits in the first inning &045; home runs by Melton and Zach Jennings &045; and didn’t give up another.

And Walker got plenty of help from the offense. Cathedral got two in the first and broke it open with five in the third off Melton, the curveball specialist who gave the Wave fits last season.

&uot;The first inning we didn’t look that good at the plate,&uot; Beesley said. &uot;We got two in, but we didn’t look that good. The third inning was when we really started hitting the ball hard.&uot;

In that third Wyler Murray and Charlie Lane had back-to-back doubles that each drove in two runs. Murray’s drove in Garrett Jones and Jeremy Davis for the first two runs, and Lane’s double scored Riley and Murray for a 6-3 lead.

Preston Hicks then singled in Lane for a 7-3 lead.

Davis cranked a solo homer in the sixth inning that put the CHS lead at 10-4.

Sacred Heart 8, Vidalia 4

VILLE PLATTE, La. &045; Poor defense came to light again for the Vidalia Vikings, and on this day they nearly dodged it.

But the Trojans got four in the sixth the hard way to break a 4-4 tie and take the second-round Class 2A playoff contest. The Vikings had four errors and gave up four unearned runs off pitcher Brett Hinson, but a Steven Tyler three-run homer in the sixth broke it open.

&uot;The complexion of that game would have been different if we wouldn’t have given them four runs,&uot; VHS head coach Johnny Lee Hoffpauir said. &uot;But Hinson pitched a heck of a game &045; good enough to win. That’s been our Achilles heel all year &045; not making the routine defensive plays. It came back to bite us.&uot;

The Vikings struck first with a run in the first and got two in the fifth when Hinson homered and Jeffery Anderson drove in Tony Hawkins on a sacrifice fly for a 3-2 lead.

Sacred Heart got two in the fifth on an error, and the Vikings tied it up again in the sixth with a run when Mac Ware scored on an Anderson sacrifice fly.