BROOKHAVEN — The Lincoln County Nationals were able to hold off a late rally by the Natchez 8-year-old Coach Pitch All Stars and took an 11-7 win in the championship game of the sub-district tournament Saturday afternoon.

Natchez scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to cut the Lincoln County Nationals’ lead to 11-7 and had runners on first and third with two outs. But a call at first base ended Natchez’s attempted comeback and the Lincoln County Nationals were the sub-district champions.

“We had a rally going in the last inning with two outs. We had a close call that could’ve gone either way,” Natchez coach Josh Hargon said. “We had the tying run coming to the plate. You don’t want the tournament to end that way. I think the umpire was ready to go home.”

But give the Lincoln County Nationals credit. They jumped out the gate early, scoring seven runs in the top of the first inning and playing some solid defense to force Natchez to have to score so many runs in the final inning.

“Before we came to bat we were already down 7-0. We made too many errors,” Hargon said. “Take away that inning and we win, maybe. It would’ve been a different game.”

Before its comeback attempt in the bottom of the sixth, Natchez had a chance to get back in the game in the bottom of the third inning, but couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity.

Natchez scored three runs in that inning and, as Hargon noted, could have scored at least three more runs had it not been for the defense of the Lincoln County Nationals.

Then came a rain delay just after the end of the fifth inning that lasted between 30 and 45 minutes.

“Every game we played was close. Every game we won was close,” Hargon said. “We never gave up.”

Joshua Day led Natchez at the plate by going 3-for-3 with a double and a triple. Landon Havard also went 3-for-3 with two of those hits going for doubles.

Natchez got to the championship game by rallying in the bottom of the sixth to defeat the Lincoln County Americans 7-6 earlier in the day.

Natchez trailed 6-5 going into the home half of the sixth.

With the game tied at 6-6 and runners at second and third and one out, Dayne Daye hit the ball to the second baseman, who bobbled it.

That allowed Joshua Day to get to home plate just in time for the game-winning run.

“Their defense played up on the grass to cut the runner at home,” Hargon said. “We had to come back in that game. We played a good team. We hit it okay, but we played really good defense. Could’ve scored some more runs, but we had some base-running errors.”

Daye went 3-for-3 and Havard was 2-for-3 with two doubles.