As the series-clinching run stood 90 feet away, Pierson Waring raised his arm to call time.

It wasn’t granted, and a fastball zipped across the plate for a strike. After a brief moment of disbelief and protest, Waring shook it off and settled back into the batter’s box. Showing uncommon cool in a tense game that frazzled the steeliest of nerves, he slapped at the next pitch and sent a chopper through a drawn-in infield. Joseph Brown pumped his fist as he trotted down the third base line with the winning run, and Waring slid uncontested into first in a show of celebration and exhaustion.

Waring’s hit — his fourth of the game — gave St. Al a 7-6, eight-inning victory in Game 2 of its Class 1A playoff series over archrival Cathedral, and a series sweep. The Flashes (22-3) advanced to the third round of the playoffs for the second straight season, and will face West Lowndes in a best-of-three series starting on Thursday.

“Right now it’s tough to even talk about it and describe it,” said St. Al coach Clint Wilkerson, whose team overcame a three-run deficit in the fifth inning, then later wasted a two-run lead in the seventh before winning it in extra innings in front of an estimated crowd of 800. “I put these guys through so much work the last couple years. Rugged, tiresome practices to force feed it to them that they’re never down. There wasn’t a single guy on this roster that wasn’t battling tonight.”

Cathedral, which was undefeated coming into the series, finishes its season with a 21-2 record. The Green Wave also fought hard, first overcoming a spirit-crushing 15-6 loss in Game 1 and then getting off the deck when they were down to their last out in Game 2.

Trailing 6-4 heading into the top of the seventh, Tyler Ballard doubled and Daniel Jenkins — who went 4-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and two runs scored — singled to start the inning. Cole Mann bunted them into scoring position, and Hunter Foster lined a two-out single into right field to bring in the tying runs. Aaron White followed with a hard grounder that skipped past Brown at first base and was then bobbled by right fielder Corey Jones. The St. Al duo made up for their misplays with a strong relay throw to gun down Foster, who was trying to score from first.

Cathedral’s Preston Edwards and St. Al’s Stephen Evans — the Game 1 starters — both returned to the mound to finish Game 2. Edwards pitched out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the sixth and struck out the side in the seventh. Evans allowed the two runs in the top of the seventh, then retired the side in the eighth. When it was Edwards’ time to match it again, though, he cracked.

Edwards hit Brown to start the eighth, then sailed a pitch to the backstop. A passed ball moved Brown over to third. Edwards came back to strike out Regan Nosser for the first out, but quickly fell behind in the count 3-0 to Waring.

After the strike call on the botched plea for time, Waring chopped a base hit through the right side of the infield to bring in the winning run.

Waring finished the game 4-for-5 with a double, three RBIs and a run scored. Despite that, Cathedral coach Craig Beesley declined to put Waring on with first and second base open. Beesley said the options — facing Waring or facing the rest of St. Al’s potent lineup — didn’t leave him much choice. The next two hitters in St. Al’s order, Blake Haygood and Ryno Martin-Nez, only had one hit between them in Game 2, but combined for five hits in Game 1.

“We thought about walking the bases loaded. But with the umpire calling so many balks, we weren’t sure about that,” Beesley said. Two balks, one on each side, were called in the game. “And Haygood had three hits in Game 1, and then we get to Ryno and we didn’t want to get to him either.”

St. Al’s eighth-inning rally marked the fourth lead change in the game. Cathedral took a 4-1 lead in the fifth, only to watch St. Al tie it with three runs in the bottom of the inning. St. Al then took the lead in the sixth when Justin Rushing hurdled the Cathedral catcher, Jenkins, on a fielder’s choice play at the plate with the bases loaded. Jenkins dropped the ball, but Rushing was also called safe because Jenkins was blocking the plate, Beesley said.

That run made it 5-4, and Haygood was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give the Flashes a two-run cushion and set up the rest of the late-inning theatrics.

“I knew he was sitting on the bag, but I didn’t want to run over him and get ejected. So I did the first thing that came to my mind, and I jumped,” said Rushing, who went 2-for-4 with a double and two runs scored.

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com