GREENVILLE &045; Patrick McDonough has been in these situations before.

Now the Cathedral defense is starting to get better playing behind him.

McDonough went the distance Saturday in the Green Wave’s 8-2 win over Greenville St. Joseph in the opening game of the best-of-three series for his seventh win of the season. He yielded nine hits in the contest, but the difference came when he made the pitches with runners on base and the defense came through behind him.

Game 2 is at 5 p.m. Monday at Chester Willis.

&uot;He did a good job when they had runners on scoring position,&uot; CHS head coach Craig Beesley said. &uot;We were making plays on defense when we had to. The difference was we scored when we had runners on base and they left some runners stranded. They left 10 runners on base, and we left five.&uot;

That was enough for the most consistent part of Cathedral’s roster to pick up the slack. The Green Wave also put up nine hits off Irish lefty starter Jonathan Martin but came up with the key hits and took a 6-0 lead after four.

Cathedral scored one in the first, two in the third and three in the fourth to take command of the opening game and set the stage for its sixth straight win over the Irish dating back to the 2003 season.

&uot;I kind of thought from the coaches I talked to (Martin) was going to throw,&uot; Beesley said. &uot;He throws pretty well. He kept us off stride. We didn’t hit the ball as hard as I thought we were. We didn’t hit the ball hard. Hopefully we’ll put the ball in play a little more Monday and make them play defense.&uot;

The Green Wave got its two runs in the third when Andrew Ellard reched on a fielder’s choice and scored on a Preston Hicks double and Hicks scored when Charlie Lane reached on an infield error.

In the fourth, the Green Wave loaded the bases with no outs when Zack Calhoun doubled, Chris Rasco singled and Jesse Morrison walked.

Ellard then grounded into a fielder’s choice to score Calhoun that forced out Morrison at second, and Hicks came through with another double to score Rasco and Ellard.

The Wave added two in the seventh when Lane doubled in Hicks and Jeremy Davis for the 8-1 lead. St. Joe added a run in the seventh.