TUPELO - It was vintage Chris Stratton on Friday night at Golden Wave Field.

The senior right-hander struck out 12, walked none and allowed five hits in shutting out visiting Grenada 4-0 in the first round of the MHSAA Class 5A baseball playoffs.

"He did absolutely a wonderful job out there," said Grenada manager Jake Yarborough. "He battled and stayed in the zone."

The Golden Wave (21-6) will look to win their regional with a victory against DeSoto Central today at Golden Wave Field. DeSoto Central beat Grenada 10-3 on Friday night to advance to today's Region 2 championship round, which begins at noon.

The Jaguars will have to beat Tupelo twice in order to advance to next week's quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, Grenada ended its season at 10-16.

Another power pitcher, Lex Rutledge (3-2), will get the start for the Wave in today's 1 p.m. game.

As for Stratton, the senior did a pretty good job at the plate, too. Hitting .253 entering the game, Stratton collected three doubles.

"He's done it for us all year," said Tupelo coach Gary Enis. "He's carried us so far. We look forward to him continuing to do that in the playoffs.

"He just seems to get better and better each game."

The Tupelo offense seemed to warm up as Friday's game went along. The Wave got on the board with two runs in the bottom of the third. Stratton and Jacob McGregor had doubles, and Kyle Graham's sacrifice fly and Kirk Roberts' RBI single would score the Wave's two runs, as Grenada starter Rafiel Johnson was pulled with two outs in the inning.

Grenada tried a pitcher-by-committee approach to limit the Tupelo offense, but that didn't seem to work out too well. The Chargers used three more pitchers to finish the game.

"You're trying to save damage control," Yarborough said. "If you mix up pitchers, you keep the other hitters off a little bit."

The Wave hitters provided Stratton with some insurance runs on Kirk Roberts' sacrifice fly in the fifth and Collin Dexter's home run in the bottom of the sixth.

Tupelo finished with 10 hits, with six of those being doubles.

"We're proud with 10 hits, but we feel like we could have gotten more than that," Enis said. "We'll come out here tomorrow and hopefully we'll have a better offensive day."