‘Trophy Season’ heads to The Rock after Gautier wins incredible South State championship
Trophy Season will march on to Hattiesburg.
The 5A South State championship game featured six second-half lead changes and two opportunities for the Brookhaven Panthers to win with one second on the clock, but it was the Gautier Gators who came out on top, 37-35, and escaped with the school’s first-ever ticket to the state championship game.
And it almost didn’t happen.
A litany of miscues and mistakes plaguing Gautier led to Brookhaven lining up a 27-yard field goal attempt with one second remaining on the clock. Panther kicker Isaac Iles missed wide right, but the Gators were hit with their second sideline warning of the game.
Iles was given a second chance and this time from 22 yards. He missed right again. It gave Gautier a school record-tying 12th win and moved the Gators to 6-0 in one-score games this year — half of which have come in the first three rounds of the playoffs.
“They’re the cardiac kids and I guess we’re going to keep being that way,” Gautier coach Marc High told the Sun Herald after the game. “But if that’s the way we want to do it, then we’ll do it.”
It seemed like Gautier would finally have a low-stress game on its hands when the Gators held a 17-7 lead late in the second quarter. But lightning would strike for Brookhaven and disaster would follow for Gautier.
Panther quarterback Jaden Allen connected with Timmothy Smith for a 51-yard score in the final minutes of the first half. Coming out of the break, Gautier fumbled the opening kickoff and Brookhaven scored again moments later and suddenly had a 21-17 lead.
That’s when the shootout began. Gautier quarterback Trey Irving led three second-half touchdown drives as part of a night where the 5A Mr. Football tossed two scoring passes, both to Kainen Rush.
Brookhaven kept pace, in part thanks to the Gators’ mistakes. One short touchdown run was set up by a Gautier punt that bounced off the back of an up-man.
But for every punch thrown by the Panthers, Gautier had a response.
“I never give up on my offense,” Irving said. “Stuff might not be going right, but you got to keep going, keep the foot on the gas and plays will happen.”
Freshman running back Latrell Pogue scored rushing touchdowns of 15 and 24 yards and the defense stepped up multiple times, including with an early interception by Gabriel Millender and a second-half fumble recovery by Fred Nicholson.
Trophy Season
High had a vision for the Gators’ season after his team won a 7-on-7 tournament during the offseason. The seventh-year head coach saw an opportunity ahead for Gautier to fill up the trophy case.
“We played a little 7-on-7 tournament, ended up winning a trophy there and I said ‘boys, we got a chance to win about six or seven trophies,’” High said. “I said we’re going to call this Trophy Season. So we’ve got a little thing we’ve been marking off and this is the second-to-last one that we’ve marked off. We’ve got one more to mark off.”
Gautier added a second trophy when it defeated Harrison Central in overtime of the season-opening Port City Bowl win over Harrison Central. A third came when it took down rival Pascagoula in the Singing River Classic.
The Gators earned their fourth by winning the program’s first district title since 2008 before making history with their fifth on Friday.
“When the games matter the most, you got to go get it,” linebacker Fred Nicholson said.
Legacy effort
Gautier’s senior class now has seven playoff wins under its belt, two more than the Gators had in the previous 25 years of the school’s history combined.
This was Gautier’s third straight trip to South State after losses to Picayune and Laurel ended each of the last two seasons one game short of the championship.
High credits the senior leadership for finally pushing Gautier over the hump.
“This team has always believed, they’re very even-keeled,” High said. “When you look at our two main leaders, Irving and Nicholson, they are very even-keeled kids and they just go after it and keep doing the same thing every day and that speaks a lot to those two.”
Gautier has won 30 games over the last three seasons, good for the most since the 34 games the school won over the first three years it existed in 1997-99.
Many of those former players from the first teams were on the field celebrating with the Gators who broke through the wall.
“Being able to represent this community, it’s amazing,” Nicholson said. “If you were here for this game, you saw how much the community supports us. It was time we finally gave that support back.”
The celebration won’t last long, however. The Gators will be bringing The Swamp to Hattiesburg next week in search of one last trophy.
Gautier is set to face West Point on Friday at 7:30 at M.M. Roberts Stadium for the 5A state title.
