LAUREL — The Natchez All-Stars had the day off Saturday at the Mississippi Dixie Youth Major League South Regional Tournament, waiting to find out if their opponent would be Hattiesburg or St. Martin.

With Hattiesburg’s 8-1 win over District 7 champion St. Martin on Saturday, another battle of district champions took place Sunday — District 6 champion Natchez against the District 8 champion.

After being shut out for four innings, Natchez tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the fifth inning and Christopher Perry hit a three-run home run in the top of the seventh as Natchez rallied for a 6-3 win in seven innings.

“We started off real slow. But the boy had a heck of a curveball,” Natchez head coach Gus Perry said. “We couldn’t touch him. They went up 2-0 and that put us behind. We had to make a couple of plays.”

In the top of the seventh, Andrew Moroney reached on an error and Daniel Huffines hit a line-drive double, his second double of the game, to put runners in scoring position for Perry. With two strikes against him, Perry hit a curveball over the fence to give Natchez the lead for good.

Ben Cooley hit a solo home run in the bottom of the seventh, but that was the only run Hattiesburg scored off Perry, who came in in the fourth inning and kept Natchez in the ball game.

“We left him in longer than we wanted to,” coach Perry said. “They played hard. They played with a lot of heart. Once they got fired up, they played really good baseball. Daniel started the game and Tanner Martin came in and they scored two runs off him. But they both pitched good.”

Perry and Huffines each went 2-for-3 for Natchez and Cooley went 2-for-3 for Hattiesburg.

Natchez will take on host Laurel in a winner’s bracket game today at 8 p.m. Laurel defeated Magee on Saturday to get to this point.