Staff Photo by Kelly Wegel-- The Lookouts' first baseman Tonys Gutierrez snags the ball to get the Carolina Mudcats' Cameron Maybin out at first in the first inning of the second game at AT&T field Monday night. The play made the third out in the top of the inning.

The Carolina Mudcats rolled into AT&T Field late last week with the four top prospects in the Florida Marlins organization and with four straight series victories to open their season.

At least they still have their prospects intact.

Chattanooga became the first Southern League team to derail Carolina, clinching the five-game series Monday evening with a 6-4 victory in the suspended contest from Sunday that was halted by rain after four innings. The Lookouts then collected their fourth win in the series in the damp and chilly seven-inning game that followed, prevailing 1-0 behind starting pitcher Ben Jukich.

“You can look up and down Carolina’s lineup and know that they’ve got players, both in the lineup and in their pitching staff,” Lookouts center fielder B.J. Szymanski said. “They’ve got a lot of quality arms that probably are going to be in the big leagues for a long time, so it’s good to jell as a team and come up with some big hits in key situations to win a series. This was extremely important for us.”

The Lookouts (15-10) pulled within a game of the Mudcats (16-9) and knocked them out of first in the North Division, which is now led by Huntsville (17-8).

Chattanooga led the suspended game 2-0 when it resumed 26 hours and 55 minutes later and took a 3-0 lead on Sean Henry’s two-out single to right field in the fifth inning that scored Michael DeJesus. Henry had a sacrifice to right in the seventh inning to make it 4-0, and DeJesus provided needed insurance in the eighth after the Mudcats pulled within 4-3. With runners on first and second, he stroked a two-out double to right-center that gave Chattanooga a 6-3 lead.

That hit was magnified in the ninth when Lookouts closer Josh Roenicke allowed a run.

DeJesus went 3-for-4 in the suspended game to raise his average to .667 since arriving from high Single-A Sarasota on April 21. Shaun Cumberland improved his average to .328, Henry to .324, Szymanski to .295 and Mike Griffin to .286.

“From top to bottom, I think everybody has the ability to come up with the big hit in their own kind of way,” Szymanski said. “Even DeJesus, who’s more of a contact guy and really works the count, all of a sudden drives one in the gap to put us up by three.”

Said Griffin: “This team doesn’t have any big guys who are just going to crush the ball or anything like that. We’ve just got a lot of guys who do different things.”

Cumberland got the Lookouts off to a quick start in the second game by leading off the bottom of the first with a homer to the bleachers in right. From there it was up to Jukich, who recorded every out but the final one, which Roenicke got by striking out Cameron Maybin.

The Lookouts won the series despite fantastic starts by Carolina’s touted trio of Chris Volstad, Brett Sinkbeil and Ryan Tucker. Maybin, rated by Baseball America as Florida’s top organizational prospect, had a dazzling catch in center during Monday’s second game but went 0-for-15 in the series.

“We didn’t come in with a set number of wins that we wanted,” Lookouts manager Mike Goff said. “We just knew that they had one heck of a pitching staff and that we would have our hands full. It’s been a heck of a ballgame with these guys every single night.”

Chattanooga is off today before opening a five-game set Wednesday at woeful Mississippi. Sam LeCure (1-1, 4.03 ERA) is scheduled to start the opener for the Lookouts.

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