From staff reports

LAUREL — In what had to be the quickest games of the entire tournament, Petal won its fourth straight game to advance to the championship round with a stunning 3-1 win over Natchez Tuesday afternoon in just one hour and 42 minutes.

Stunning because after scoring six runs in the first inning against Laurel Monday night and 16 total runs in winning its first two tournament games before that, Natchez’s offense was shut down. As a result, Natchez scored a total of two runs in what turned out to be the final 11 innings of its season.

Coming off a tough 9-7 loss to host Laurel, the Natchez 12-year-old All-Stars had to shift their focus to defeating Petal in order to advance to the finals of the Mississippi Dixie Youth Major League South Regional Tournament.

Since losing to the same Laurel team last Friday in the first round of the tournament, Petal has been red hot in putting together wins over McComb, St. Martin and Hattiesburg to get to this point.

Winning pitcher Levi Brewer gave up one run on two hits in the top of the first inning. After that, he pitched five scoreless innings and gave up just one hit. He also went 2-for-3 with a double.

“He kept throwing a little sidearm changeup and we couldn’t wait on it,” Natchez head coach Gus Perry said. “He used that pitch for most of the game.”

In the top of the first, Daniel Huffines hit a stand-up triple and scored on a single by Christopher Perry to give Natchez a 1-0 lead.

A pair of errors by Natchez’s defense allowed Petal to tie the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the first. Petal then scored the game-winning runs in the bottom of the third on a two-run double by Trevor Williams.