‘Hallelujah.’ Picayune star fights through pain as Maroon Tide wins 5A South State.
After being held out of practice all week with an ankle sprain, Picayune star running back Cameron Thomas woke up just after midnight on gameday worried he was no closer to returning to action.
“Oh my God, I won’t be able to play,” the 3,000-yard rusher thought to himself as he laid in bed.
Thomas limped onto and off the field for much of Friday night’s Class 5A South State game at West Jones, but he proved to be healthy with the ball in his hands. The senior ran 22 times for 244 yards and three touchdowns, sparking the Maroon Tide to a 49-14 victory over West Jones in a matchup of unbeaten teams.
Picayune (14-0) advances to play West Point at 7 p.m. on Dec. 7 in the Class 5A state title game at M.M. Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg. West Point, which improved to 14-1 after beating Neshoba Central 20-7 on Friday, has won the past three 5A state championships.
Dodd Lee, who plans to retire at the end of the season, will have a shot at his third state championship in his 24th and final season as the Picayune football coach.
“Those guys have all my respect,” Lee said of West Point. “We’ll have to find a way to get into the fourth quarter with a chance. If you get in the fourth quarter with a chance, you never know what’s going to happen.”
Cameron Thomas makes ‘miracle’ recovery
While the Picayune defense also had a major say in the outcome in Soso, Lee owes a great deal to Thomas for making what the coach and his players described as a “miracle” of a recovery.
“He got two shots Thursday,” Lee said. “We had a lot of people helping us.”
On his second carry of the second half, he appeared to aggravate his ankle injury when he slipped before slowly limping off the field.
Four plays later, Thomas found a gap in the middle, put a couple of shifty moves on the defense before outrunning the secondary for a 32-yard touchdown run to make it 28-7 with 7:33 left in the third quarter.
“It’ll hurt for a minute, and it’ll stop,” Thomas said of his injury. “It’s off and on all game.”
The 5-7, 155-pound senior’s most impressive run of the night may have been his last when he found a hole in the West Jones front and ran almost untouched 87 yards, finishing off the carry with a strong burst of speed.
“He’s magical,” Picayune junior running back/defensive back Austin Samples. “Thursday, you could tell he wasn’t Cam. He came out here, he’s magical. He wasn’t looking like himself at first. I gave him a pep talk, and there Cam was. It was a miracle. It’s crazy.”
Picayune’s challenge gets tougher
After losing 21-13 to West Jones at Picayune in the South State round a year ago, the Maroon Tide followed the mantra of “Revenge week” in preparations for the contest.
When the two teams met again on Friday night, Picayune was able to flip the script on the Mustangs’ home field.
“Our kids have worked for 365 days for this,” Lee said. “I think they had it in the back of their mind and it was going to happen, hallelujah.
“Sometimes losses are the greatest thing that can happen to you. The kids grew from that. It’s been a lot of sweat and a lot of puke.”
The Picayune defense held West Jones junior quarterback Alan Follis to 138 yards, a touchdown and an interception on 15-of-29 passing. The Mustangs’ top rusher, Kentrell Pruitt, managed just 59 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries.
The challenge only gets stiffer against West Point, but the Maroon Tide is determined to finish Lee’s career at Picayune with a celebration in Hattiesburg.
“We talk about it all the time,” Picayune senior receiver/defensive back Jalen Hall said. “We’ve got to send him out with a bang.”
This story was originally published November 29, 2019 at 11:34 PM.
