NATCHEZ — If Team St. Andrews were to have any chance of winning the Beau Pré Cup against Team Carnoustie for the first time since 2005, it would have to get off to a good start in the morning, and keep the momentum going in the afternoon.

Granted, the two teams were tied at seven points apiece after day 1 a year ago, only to see Team Carnoustie dominate Sunday’s singles matches en route to a 17 ½ point to 10 ½ point win. But Team St. Andrews would probably have to win both the alternate shot and four-ball matches on Saturday to have a chance to win this year.

And that’s exactly what happened as Team St. Andrews finished with 10 points while Team Carnoustie had just six. And it would have been an even bigger lead for Team St. Andrews had it not been for the final four matches of the afternoon’s four-ball action.

Four different teams won both of their matches for Team St. Andrews Saturday — team captain Kurt Russ and Adrian Sandel; Trampus Butler and Larry Davis; Bill Byrne and Lloyd Trisler; and Rob Smith and Chuck Fields. The only players to win two matches for Team Carnoustie were Mel Beltzhoover and Bill Lambert.

“My team is playing well. I am thoroughly impressed,” Russ said. “There’s a lot of golf to play. We still the singles matches tomorrow.”

Russ and Sandel defeated team captain Billy Ulmer and Bruce Reynolds 3 and 2 in one of the four-ball matches after taking a commanding 4-up lead at the turn.

“We both played really well. We kept it in play,” Russ said.

Beltzhoover and Lambert teamed up to defeat Craig Bradford and Mark Carter 5-up in the alternate shot matches. Beltzhoover then birdied No. 17 and No. 18 to allow him and Jeff Anderson to defeat Mike Cook and David Harris 2-up while Lambert teamed up with Chris Kelley to defeat Bradford and Cliff Cavin 2 and 1 in the four-ball matches.

Smith and Fields rallied after being 3-down to Jerry Beauchamp and Woody Allen, going into the 12th hole to take a 1-up win.

“Rob just made a lot of putts,” Fields said.

But the story of the day was the impressive display of golf by the team of Byrne and Trisler, who defeated Gary Farmer and Mitch Ashmore 8 and 7 in the morning and then defeated Ashmore and Jay Lessley 6 and 5 in the afternoon.

“Lloyd and I teamed together well. We both kept the ball in play and made several birdies,” Byrne said. “This morning we were 4-under through 11 holes. We had a real good rhythm going. The afternoon was very tight until we birdied 8, 10, 11 12 and 13. We both had good birdie putts on those holes.”

Team St. Andrews led at one point 9 1/2 points to 2 1/2 points, but Team Carnoustied won three straight matches, starting with Howard Jones and Al Guido’s 3 and 2 win over Hayden Kaiser and Chad Huber.

“Al carried me all day. Everybody played pretty good,” Jones said. “We had a couple of breaks that fell our way.”

Joel Dupre’ and Mark Carter battled an all-square result with Bobby Meason and Robin Punches, which resulted in a half of a point for both teams.

“The bottom half of the line-up played well. The first three teams played well, but Larry and Trampus had the best round of the day at 8 or 9-under. Lloyd and Bill shot 6 or 7-under. It’s hard to beat that. We’ll regroup and tee it off tomorrow.”

The singles matches get underway at 1 p.m. With a total of 32 players — 16 on each team — instead of the usual 28 players, Team St. Andrews will need another six-and-a- half points to win back the Beau Pré Cup. If it ends up somehow in a 16-16 tie, the team captains will have to take on each other to determine the championship team.