STRINGER — Quinton Logan pitched a complete-game shutout and delivered at the plate with an early two-run home run as the Cathedral Green Wave defeated the Stringer Red Devils 8-0 Tuesday afternoon to take a 1-0 lead in the MHSAA Class 1A South State Championship series.

Logan threw 102 pitches through six innings, but he finished the game strong with two strikeouts and a groundout to first to end the game. He allowed five hits, struck out 10 batters, walked two and hit one batter.

“He had a good night tonight,” Cathedral head coach Craig Beesley said. “He got ahead in the count a lot. He threw strikes.”

Stringer had a couple of chances to get on the scoreboard against Logan. The Red Devils had runners at the corner with two outs, but Logan was able to get out of the jam. Then in the bottom of the sixth, Seth Walters hit a leadoff single and Connon Welborn hit a one-out double to put runners in scoring position.

But once again, Logan settled down. He first struck out Daylan Dyess swinging and Austin King was thrown out at first base after a dropped third strike.

“He caught his second wind in the middle of the sixth inning. He got two big strikeouts to get out of that inning,” Beesley said.

The Green Wave jumped out early on Stringer starting pitcher Delayne Herrington. After Craig Bradley walked, Zach Flattmann delivered a run-scoring double. Jardarius Anderson entered as a courtesy runner for Flattmann and Logan hit a 2-2 pitch out of the park for a two-run home run and a 3-0 Green Wave lead.

“It’s always the momentum for us when we score early. We could have added a few more runs early,” Beesley said. “But I was happy with the way we swung the bats tonight.”

Pate Shirley made it 4-0 when hit a leadoff home run off Herrington on the first pitch of the at-bat. Cathedral chased Herrington out of the game after a walk to Andrew Beesley and a one-out single by Flattmann in the top of the fifth inning.

Herrington was charged with the loss after allowing six runs, all of them earned, on five hits and three walks with two strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings. He was replaced by Welborn, who immediately walked Logan and gave up a two-run single to Shirley. An error allowed Logan to score and the Green Wave was up 7-0.

Shirley finished 2-for-3 with two runs batted in and one run scored. Flatmmann was 2-for-3 with two RBIs and Logan finished 1-for-3 with a walk, two RBIs and two runs scored.

Cathedral had an opportunity to blow the game wide open in the top of the sixth inning. After Welborn walked leadoff batter Gabe Smith, Jacob Jenkins moved Smith to second on a sacrifice bunt and Beesley walked, Welborn was relieved by Bailey Seals.

Seals walked Bradley and Flattmann to make it an 8-0 game and the bases were still loaded.

Another pitching change brought in Mason Avary and he had the daunting task of pitching to Logan and Shirley. However, Avary got out of that major jam by getting Logan to strike out swinging and Shirley to strike out looking.

Cathedral (22-4) will look to sweep Stringer (23-8) in Game 2 of the best-of-three series, which will be played at Chester Willis Field Thursday beginning at 6 p.m.