Green Wave piles on 41 runs in sweep of Mize

Published 12:00 am Monday, May 9, 2005

NATCHEZ &045; Confidence at the plate? Are you kidding?

It’s so much more than that. You’ll have to come up with a more accurate term to describe the wreckage Cathedral’s bats put up in a doubleheader sweep of Mize to move on in the Class 1A playoffs.

The final numbers &045; 41 runs on 39 hits and 12 extra-base hits in 13 innings in just over six hours at the ball park.

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That was enough to give Mize’s coaching staff a headache following a 24-17 loss in Game 1 and a 17-7 loss in six innings in Game 2 to the Green Wave as Cathedral advances to the second round against Greenville St. Joseph next week.

Even the scoreboard needed a breather.

&uot;I don’t know how many hits Cathedral hard, but boy did they hit the ball,&uot; Mize head coach Sid Wheatley said. &uot;That’s what happens when you’re thin on pitching. I’m proud of my kids. We stayed with them and did the best we could. You hope you can get key hits at the right time, and we didn’t have as many as Cathedral did. You’ve got to tip your hat to them.&uot;

It was enough for everyone in the four-team tournament to tip their hats to the Green Wave, who finished with 63 runs scored in its five games played over three days. The hitting overcame everything else that gave the team problems at times &045; a thinning pitching staff late in the tournament and some untimely mistakes on defense.

Each time, however, there were the bats to save the day.

&uot;We came out swinging,&uot; said Jeremy Davis, who hit for the cycle over the course of the doubleheader. &uot;We’ve been hitting the ball fairly well. We had made some defensive errors that hurt us in the past, and today we stepped up when we had to. We made a big double play when we needed it. Both of us were hitting the ball both games, and coach had told us no matter how many runs we get ahead, it ‘s never safe.&uot;

That was the lesson everyone learned Friday when the Bulldogs rallied from four runs down in their last at-bat to score eight runs to send the Green Wave to the losers’ bracket. Even on Saturday the Bulldogs never quit &045; they whittled an 11-run deficit down to three in Game 1 and answered a six-run Cathedral second in Game 2 with two in the fourth to take a 7-6 lead.

This time, however, the Green Wave turned a big double play in the sixth when Chase Smith grounded into a 6-4-3 to end the inning. Cathedral then answered with four in the bottom half, including Davis’ inside-the-park three-run homer.

Center fielder Ryan Cockrell crashed into the fence and didn’t get up, leaving Davis to circle the bases to end the game.

&uot;We did a good job of being disciplined at the plate and waiting for a good pitch to hit,&uot; Cathedral head coach Craig Beesley said. &uot;We kind of lost our focus at the start of the second game, but we kind of got it back there. We hit some balls that found the gaps, but a lot of our base hits were hard-hit ball. We didn’t have a lot of seeing-eye singles.&uot;

Davis’ last hit was the finishing touch on a day where he went a combined six for seven with two homers, a double and a triple. The Green Wave led 10-7 after four and put up three in the fifth with Davis doubling in Preston Hicks for the second run, and Davis later scored on an error for a 13-7 lead.

Davis, meanwhile, did his job on the mound while keeping the Bulldogs from scoring in just over four innings of relief. Like Mize, the Green Wave was out of pitching as well as Davis entered the game for starter Hicks, who pitched the last four innings of Game 1.

The Bulldogs got two runs off Davis in the fourth to take a 7-6 lead with Joseph Adcock scoring on a fielder’s choice and Al Hunt scoring on an error. Davis got the final out on a strikeout looking and allowed just one hit in final two innings.

&uot;We all are (worn down), really,&uot; Davis said the pitching staff. &uot;All of our pitchers are, but it’s do-or-die time. If you lose, you’re gone. You’ve got to go with what you’ve got sore arm or not. Coach told me, ‘You’ll have to go.’ As long as we kept hitting the ball like we were, I knew we had it.&uot;

Give credit to Hicks for starting the game out after finishing the first game solid by allowing only two runs in the last three innings. He got into trouble at the start when Mize scored five runs in the second, including an inside-the-park grand slam from Zach Jennings.