NATCHEZ &045; West Lincoln leadoff hitter Holli Smith was only doing what everyone else on the team was doing &045; she just clubbed the first pitch she saw.

But on this cut, the result was much different.

A grand slam that put the game away.

Smith’s granny in the fifth put Cathedral’s Lady Wave down for the count as it enacted the 10-run rule and allowed the Lady Bears to come away with an 11-0 win Monday night at the Natchez-Adams Girls Softball Complex.

The Lady Bears (3-0, 8-5) hammered away as only seven of the 34 batters didn’t connect on either the first or second pitch from Cathedral’s Brandi McGraw.

&uot;She was pitching real good,&uot; said Smith, a sophomore. &uot;That first pitch was a good pitch for me. We were real ready to play. We had our heads in this game and everything. Normally we do good in one thing and not the other, but today we were on with everything &045; baserunning, defense and hitting.&uot;

It left the Lady Wave deflated a bit in that last inning, but the team’s struggles started in the early innings as West Lincoln took a quick 3-0 lead after one. But things fell apart in the fifth as the Lady Bears put up seven runs &045; three before Smith’s shot down the line in right scored Kacey Smith, Meagan Neal and Hannah Krouse.

Kind of a rerun of how things have gone lately, but the Lady Wave (0-4, 5-7) at least got West Lincoln and Bogue Chitto out the way in the division race with six more to play.

&uot;It’s just the same ol’ story &045; we’re not getting hits when we need them,&uot; CHS head coach Gary Blackwell said. &uot;We’ve been playing better defense than we did tonight. We made some errors in the beginning of the game that allowed them to get some runs, which we normally don’t do. You can make errors, but you’ve got to

make them up by scoring runs. And we didn’t do that.&uot;

The Lady Bears had steady control of the game until that one big inning in the fifth, and three Cathedral errors did give them extra outs. April Kennedy reached on an error with a runner on first base and one out, and Neal later came with a single that scored Brittani Phillips for the first run.

Kennedy later scored before Holli Smith’s granny, and back-to-back errors allowed Keri Easley to score the final run.

&uot;We’ve really been concentrating on putting a full game in,&uot; West Lincoln head coach Andrew Redd said. &uot;We’d get runners on base and strand them. We’d hit in front of them and get them out at third. We did a good job of moving the runners around.

&uot;That was a good outside pitch (to Holli Smith) that she was looking for. She got it down good. She’s been trying to be patient and look for that pitch to swing at.&uot;

The Lady Wave had just five hits in the contest, including Kristina Brumfield’s single to lead off the fifth. But when Claire Kenda flied out to left two pitches later, Easley gunned it to second to double up the runner after Brumfield was called for leaving the bag too early.

It erased the team’s only hit after the second inning. Phillips got the next batter on an infield fly to end the game.

&uot;You’ve got to try and manufacture a run, and she just left a little too soon,&uot; Blackwell said. &uot;Then we had two outs instead of one. We’re hitting bad pitches. We’re watching a strike go by, batting defensively and swinging at anything. That’s the difference between us and them &045; they’re swinging at the good pitches.&uot;

Cathedral had chances in the first two innings but left two runners on in each frame. In the second Caitlin Huffines singled and moved up to third on Jennie Allen’s single, but the next batter flied out to left to end the inning.

West Lincoln used aggressive baserunning to keep the offense going in the first inning. When Carrie Farmer flied out to left with Smith on second and Easley on first, Smith tagged up on the play and got to third safely when she knocked the ball loose.

The ball rolled into the dugout to allow Holli Smith to score and Easley to third. Phillips then singled in Easley, and Kacey Smith’s single scored Phillips.

Phillips tripled to lead off the third and scored on Heather Huff’s sacrifice fly.