NATCHEZ — The Cathedral Green Wave had no answer for Monterey High School’s duo of Dillon Smith and Cade Passman as the Wolves held on for a 65-60 win Monday night in Cathedral’s season opener.

Smith ended up with a game-high 27 points and Passman added 16 points for Monterey, which improved to 4-1 on the season. Cathedral, on the other hand, was without a pair of starters.

“Dillon Smith was just incredible for them tonight. So was Cade Passman. They were phenomenal,” Green Wave head coach Peter Arnold said. “(Alex) Weadock is still out with the back. R.J. Givens is not back yet. But that had nothing to do with the outcome of the game. You have to give credit where credit is due.”

Cathedral got off to a good start on both ends of the court and led Monterey 18-10 at the end of the first quarter. Then the Wolves started to turn the momentum in their favor in the second quarter, in which they outscored the Green Wave 17-9 to make it a 27-27 game at the half.

With Smith and Passman leading the way, the Wolves put up 17 points in the third quarter and 21 points in the fourth quarter. The Green Wave scored 14 points in the third quarter and 19 in the fourth.

Monterey made 12 of 17 points in the fourth quarter to keep Cathedral from mounting a comeback.

“They’re farther along than we are. They’re more polished than we are at this point,” Arnold said. “It was a very close game. They made a couple of plays at the end and made their free throws. Though we lost, I’m not discouraged by the way we played in the first game out.”

Jacob Hamilton led the Green Wave with 13 points and Derrion Battieste had 10 points.

Monterey next plays at 7:30 p.m. today at Jena. Cathedral (0-1) plays at Enterprise at 7:30 p.m. today.

Cenla Christian 77, WCCA 38

PINEVILLE, La. — The Cenla Christian Academy Lions scored 32 points in the second quarter to turn a somewhat close game into a blowout as they defeated the Wilkinson County Christian Academy Rams 77-38 Monday night.

Cenla Christian led WCCA 20-11 after one quarter of play. Then came the second quarter. And it was not pretty at all for the Rams as they not only saw the Lions score at will, but they were held to just nine points to trail 52-20 at halftime.

WCCA (0-2) will look to pick up its first win of the season when it hosts Chamberlain-Hunt Academy at 7 p.m. today.