HATTIESBURG — Tyler Wilson left the Canton Dixie Youth All-Stars frustrated not only on the mound, but at the plate in the first round of the Mississippi Dixie Youth 12-year-old State Tournament.

Wilson pitched two no-hit, shutout innings and then helped his own cause by hitting a two-run home run in the top of the third inning as the Natchez Dixie Youth 12-year-old All-Stars jumped out to a 7-0 lead and held on for a 10-6 win Saturday afternoon.

Natchez would have broken the game wide open had Canton brought its starting pitcher, Fidel Dello, back in the game earlier than it did. And that was after Canton made a crucial pitching change that almost paid off. Canton had rallied in the bottom of the fourth and fifth innings to cut Natchez’s lead to 7-6.

“They came back and their first pitcher that they had, he was having trouble finding the plate,” Natchez 12s coach Terry Moffett said. “As far as from top to bottom at the plate, (we) did a good job.”

Wilson pitched the first two innings on the mound for Natchez. And while he struck out just one batter, he got plenty of help from the defense as well as plenty of run support.

“Tyler was hitting his spots. Kept the other kids off-balanced. And that’s what he’s supposed to do,” Moffett said.

Natchez scored one run in the top of the first inning and added four more runs in the top of the second. Wilson’s two-run blast made it 7-0.

Landon Seyfarth came in to pitch the next two innings. He pitched a scoreless third inning, but ran into trouble in the bottom of the fourth as he loaded the bases for Brent Lovelace, who got a pitch he liked and hit over the fence for a grand slam home run and just like that it was a 7-6 game.

“Landon pitched a good third inning and all but one pitch in the fourth,” Moffett said. “He threw up in the zone and the kid hit it.”

Will Moffett pitched the fifth inning and gave up a couple of runs and Canton was down by just one run. But Natchez got a key three-run home run from Luke Thomas in the top of the sixth inning to go up 10-6 and Christopher White came in and pitched a scoreless bottom of the sixth inning to preserve the win.

“Landon and Will, we got them some pitching experience. We went 2-2-1-1 as far as innings pitched. We feel good about that,” coach Moffett said. “In these tournaments, you need all the pitching you can get.”

Seyfarth had a good game at the plate as he went 3-for-3 with a double and Thomas was 2-for-3 as he also had a double to go with his homer. As a team, Natchez had 10 hits in the game.

“Right now they seem to be seeing the ball well. As long as they keep doing that, we’ll be okay,” Moffett said. “We’ll take the pitching and good defense all the time.”

The Natchez 12-year-old All-Stars will take on the winner of the Magee-Canton Rangers game today at 7 p.m.