Brookhaven Academy’s Caston Thompson is in the eighth grade.

He didn’t look like it on Thursday night when he threw five innings of one-hit baseball against Amite School Center in the Cougars’ 6-1 win that vaulted them to the third-round of the playoffs.

“I thought he really competed,” Brookhaven Academy baseball coach Tyler Parvin said. “He threw strikes, and even on a night that he didn’t have his best stuff, he competed. I was proud of him and the effort.”

Thompson’s only blemish came in the top of the third inning when the Rebels led off the inning with a double, and the runner eventually came around to score to give ASC a 1-0 lead in the contest.

Brookhaven Academy’s offense struggled the first time through the order, but in the top of the third they put four runs on the scoreboard to take a commanding 4-1 lead.

After an intentional walk, shortstop Dawson Flowers would hit a RBI-single to get the Cougars on the score board. Nick Ogden followed with an RBI single of his own, and two runners scored the next at-bat on Dawson Zumbro’s RBI-fielder’s choice.

“I thought we were good offensively,” Parvin said. “We had some things that we could do better, but for the most part I thought we hit it well.”

The Cougars would add a run in the bottom of the fourth inning to take a 5-1 lead into the top of the fifth. Thompson retired the Rebels in order in the fifth inning and finished the game with five innings pitched and only surrendered one earned run and one hit.

The Cougars added another run to stretch the lead out to 6-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning when lead-off hitter Brady Spring belted a ball over the center field wall.

“I was just waiting to attack a fastball, and I got it,” Spring said. “That was the pitch that I was looking for, and I put a good swing on it.”

Flowers would pitch a scoreless sixth inning, and Ogden would throw a scoreless seventh inning for the Cougars to send them to the third round of the playoffs.

“It’s nice to have those guys on the back end that can finish games off,” Parvin said. “They’ve been working hard, and we trust them to finish games. “

Spring said that the mentality going into the rest of the playoffs is to take games one-by-one and not to get ahead of themselves.

“We just have to approach it the same,” Spring said.

The Cougars will travel to Centreville Academy on Tuesday night, before returning home on Thursday for a game two and possibly game three with the winner advancing to the state championship series.