STRINGER — For nine magical innings Thursday night, Stephen Evans and Andrew Pierce turned into artists.

Using the plate as a canvas and the baseball as their brush, they painted a mosaic of zeroes and frustrated batters that seemed destined to take all night to complete. Even when one of them finally faltered, giving up the game-winning run on an out, they got the job done.

Chandler Blakeney’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth inning brought in the game’s only run, as Stringer beat St. Aloysius 1-0 in Game 1 of the MHSAA Class 1A South State championship series.

“It was a good baseball game. Of course, you want to be on the winning end, but it was a great baseball game,” St. Al coach Clint Wilkerson said. “Tip your hat to Pierce. He was great. Both of them pitched outstanding. They really did.”

Stringer (21-4) took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series, and can finish off the Flashes (24-4) in Game 2 tonight at 6 at Bazinsky Field. If St. Al wins tonight, the deciding Game 3 will be back at Stringer at 4 p.m. Saturday. The loss was St. Al’s first since April 1 — coincidentally, also at Stringer. Wilkerson said his team needs to remember what got them to this point, and not dwell on such a tough loss.

“We’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing all year long. It’s a three-game series, not a one-game,” Wilkerson said.

The teams combined for only eight hits in Game 1, and neither had a runner advance past second base until Stringer’s game-winning rally. Evans walked two, one intentionally, had 14 strikeouts and retired 22 of 25 batters he faced from the second through the eighth innings. Pierce walked two batters and hit two, struck out nine, and retired 19 of the last 21 men he faced.

Both pitchers went the distance, but their dominance allowed them to work deep into the game. Pierce (8-0) only needed 99 pitches to make it through nine full innings, while Evans (10-2) threw 110 pitches in 8 2/3. The game took just over two hours to play.

“That’s pretty good,” Evans said. “I got to that ninth inning and my arm was hanging.”

Even as fatigue set in, Evans was nearly unhittable.

Weston Stringer led off the ninth with a bunt single. After a sacrifice bunt, an intentional walk to Pierce and a single by Derek Bynum loaded the bases for Blakeney. The Stringer catcher was the only player on either side to do much of anything at the plate, and he came up at the perfect time for the Red Devils.

He ripped a line drive to center that Blake Haygood hauled in with a nice running, over-the-shoulder catch. Haygood had no chance to throw out Stringer, though, as the speedy shortstop trotted home with the winning run. Blakeney finished the game 2-for-3 with the lone RBI. He also flied out to center with one of the few hard-hit balls all night off of Evans.

“We got that third out in the eighth inning and we had the top of the lineup coming up. I knew I just had to hold them,” Pierce said.

As exciting as the finish was, the Flashes were kicking themselves to let it get to that point. They had four runners thrown out on the basepaths in the second and third innings. One was caught stealing; another was picked off of second; and two more were thrown out trying to take an extra base on singles to right field.

“We tried to take extra bases on a short field. We were just being overly aggressive early in the game and it cost us tonight,” Wilkerson said.

Pierce only allowed a hit batter and a single by Sean Weaver the rest of the way. After not striking anyone out in the first three innings, he racked up five straight strikeouts in the fourth and fifth. As the outs piled up, the missed opportunities early grew in magnitude.

Evans kept it close, allowing only a first-inning walk, two singles by Blakeney and another single to Josh Woodruff through seven innings.

“Red did his thing for nine innings. You can’t ask for more than that,” Weaver said. “We let (Pierce) get in a rhythm, and he’s really dangerous when he gets into a rhythm. (Evans) was on tonight. He and Pierce were pitch for pitch.”

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com