NATCHEZ — The Natchez High baseball team was in good shape to take the lead in Division 6-6A after four innings of play against Terry Friday night at Chester Willis Field.

Pitcher Javon Washington was cruising along. He had given up only two hits and Natchez had a 4-0 lead.

But, in the fifth inning the bottom dropped out for Natchez.

Terry rallied nine runs on eight hits in the inning to take a commanding 9-4 lead.

“They just hit the ball real well,” Natchez coach Charlie Williams said. “They are a good hitting team, and they just kept throwing their hands to the ball and did a good job.”

Terry would tack on six more runs in the top of the sixth inning to beat Natchez 15-4 after six innings.

Washington threw all six innings for the Bulldogs but after the fourth inning he had trouble missing bats.

Washington allowed 14 earned runs on 15 Terry hits, he also hit four batters and walked one.

In Natchez’s biggest game of the season Williams wanted to stick with the pitcher that got his team to this point, he said.

“If I lose a game I want to lose it with my No. 1 (guy) on the mound,” Williams said.

Natchez also made six errors on the night, only one of those resulted in a run, but they did cause Washington to throw more pitches and put him in tough situations.

Natchez was able to jump out to a 4-0 lead in the third inning against Terry starter Joshua Townes.

The Bulldogs had five straight batters reach. Jadarrius Williams had an RBI single to get the scoring started. Then Trevon Chatman singled to score Williams. Chatman was 2-for-4 on the night.

The next two runs came around on a Terry error.

Terry’s half of the fifth started with Washington getting Westin Stringer to ground out to first. Then the next six batters all reached and scored.

After a second ground out to first, Terry put together four more consecutive hits, including a triple and two doubles to bring the total runs to nine.

The big hit of the sixth inning came off the bat of Townes.

With one runner on base, Townes hit a home run to right-center field to bring home Terry’s 14th and 15th runs.

Townes finished the game 2-for-5 with a double and the home run and three RBIs.

Stringer drove in four for Terry.

The loss drops Natchez to 12-6 on the year and 5-2 in the district. It also gives Terry a leg up on the division race.

“The only way they don’t (win the division) now is if they have a complete disaster,” Williams said.

Natchez will play at Lanier at 1 p.m. today.