NATCHEZ — The Lady Green Wave’s speed was no match for Dexter Tuesday as Cathedral defeated the Lady Bulldogs 55-30.

Cathedral sunk its first two shots — including one off the jump — and Dexter didn’t score in the first two and a half minutes, and the Green Wave took a 9-point lead in the first quarter.

“We’re pretty quick and pretty fast,” said Cathedral coach Kathy Graning.

That deficit just got larger in the second quarter as the Lady Wave scored on five of six possessions by forcing turnovers.

Cathedral went up 26-18 at the half about the closest the Lady Bulldogs would get.

“I was worried for a little bit,” Graning said. “They’ve got a couple big girls. That (Dee Harvey and Ashley Blackwell) can play. They didn’t have a real good game tonight, but we played pretty decent defense tonight so that helped.”

Cathedral put up 17 points in the third quarter and another 12 in the final eight minutes, while Dexter only managed 6 points in both the third and fourth quarters.

Mae Durkin led the Green Wave with 12 points, and Ginny Daggett added 11.

“We played much better against them this time,” Graning said. “They beat us by 8 over there (at Dexter). Today we managed to play much better.”

Graning said the Green Wave (8-13, 5-4) needed to win the game by more than 8 points and win two of its final three games to get a three-seed in the district tournament.

“I’m pleased with the win,” she said. “We needed it, and we needed it at home. Now we just get ready for Sacred Heart on Friday.”

Dexter boys 85, Cathedral 52

The Green Wave managed to keep up with the top team in Region 8-1A for 16 minutes, but couldn’t hold on in the second half of the game.

The score was tied at 18 after the first quarter and Cathedral was down by 8 at the half, but things went downhill from there.

“Basically we just didn’t have enough fire power to stay with them,” Cathedral coach Peter Arnold said. “They were nine-deep off their bench, and they don’t lose any level of play when they substitute. We just physically couldn’t keep up with them for 32 minutes.”

Dexter was a bit larger as a team as well, and Arnold said its hard for a young team like his, with 14-year-olds, playing against 17- and 18-year-olds.

“They were a lot more developed, bigger and stronger, and they just wore us down,” he said. “As you get tired playing against a real aggressive full-court man defense like that, you start making bad decisions. They turn it into easy points.”

Daniel Huffines led the Wave with 22 points — 13 of those came in the first half. Carl Hammitte and Russell Goodman both added 10.

Arnold said all he could do was chalk the loss up to fatigue.

“We were able to handle pressure the whole first half and get the ball up the floor,” he said. “In the second half we weren’t able to do that. We started turning the ball over.”