NATCHEZ — Cathedral School softball coach Gary Blackwell called it one of the worst games his team played all year.

Not surprisingly, he said it following a game where the Lady Green Wave came out on the short end.

Cathedral dropped its opening game against Sebastopol High School 4-2 Thursday in the second round of the MHSAA Class 1A playoffs. A lack of hitting was one of the main culprits, Blackwell said.

“We came out and just weren’t hitting,” Blackwell said. “It took us until the third inning before we started making contact, but we just hit it right at them.

“We finally got something going in the seventh (when Cathedral scored two runs), but by then, it was too late.”

No one for Cathedral had more than one hit, and Ginny Daggett and Mollie Devening accounted for Cathedral’s only two extra-base hits with a double apiece.

Devening got the start for Cathedral, going seven innings and giving up four runs on three hits. She walked one and struck out three, and Blackwell said some shaky defense contributed to at least a couple of those runs.

“Our defense has carried us the whole year, and when we’re on, we’re awesome,” Blackwell said. “Today, though, we just made too many errors. They played small ball on us pretty well, and we weren’t making defensive plays when they were doing small ball.”

Blackwell said the errors were more mental than anything else.

“As least three were in the fourth inning (when Sebastopol scored two runs),” Blackwell said.

“They were just throwing errors. They had people on base, and we just started running and not throwing where we should have. We just went brain dead.”

With Cathedral trailing 0-1 in the series, Saturday’s Game 2 at 1 p.m. looms large for his team, Blackwell said, but he’s confident his girls will respond well to the challenge.

“We have our backs against the wall now,” Blackwell said. “We do have a special team, and these girls have a lot of character. They don’t give up, so I know they’ll come back and they’ll be on their game.”

If necessary, Game 3 will immediately follow Game 2 Saturday.