Wrapping up an incredible Friday night of South State championship games across South MS
The Mississippi Coast will not be left home in November again.
Two teams are set to represent South Mississippi in the state championships in Hattiesburg after four competed for South State titles Friday. One team will be playing in the final round for the first time while the other is returning the familiar grounds.
A full breakdown of the action can be found at SunHerald.com.
These are the biggest stories from the week of action.
Three decades coming
The field flooded with former players who put on the very first Gautier football uniforms in the late 1990s and current head coach Marc High stayed on the 40-degree field throughout the night to greet every one of them.
Brookhaven missed not one, but two field goals in the final second to send the Gators to the state championship game for the first time in the 28-year history of the school.
Team No. 28 wasn’t too dissimilar from the first three teams. Each would sweep their district schedules on their way to winning double-digit games. But those early years would end in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
Today’s senior class channeled back-to-back South State championship game losses into a frenetic, chaotic and often nerve-wracking season of vengeance, both for themselves and for those who came before them.
“Being able to represent this community, it’s amazing,” linebacker Fred Nicholson said after the game. “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 current group of seniors have won more playoff games than the school had in its combined history before their arrival. Gautier goes for one more Friday against West Point.
Keys to the championship
Sophomore running back Ty Keys bounded around the sideline during Poplarville’s round one win over Natchez. The two-sport star wasn’t dressed and had only played one game all year while he nursed a collarbone injury.
Keys still found a way to a part of the action as the loudest voice among a sea of Hornets. When asked when he would suit up again, he said with a grin: “Hopefully next week.”
He would return the next week. Keys tallied 91 yards in the round two win over Columbia. He gained 97 the following week against McComb. Keys then announced his re-arrival with 159 yards and two touchdowns in the South State championship win over Forest.
Keys — who gained over 1,200 yards as a freshman last year — has given an already-stacked Hornets backfield an extra lift at just the right moment.
He’s the fourth different back to record a 100-yard rushing game for Poplarville this season, joining leading rusher Nick Miller, Zack Case and Thomas Lambert.
The quartet is faced with one more challenge against the state’s most consistent power. Poplarville meets the reigning back-to-back-to-back 4A state champs Louisville next Saturday.
Future glimpse in loss
The Ocean Springs season came to a familiar end. The Brandon Bulldogs rolled through the Greyhounds to keep them one game shy of Hattiesburg for the second time in three years.
But it wasn’t all gloomy. Down 31-6 in the fourth quarter, freshman quarterback Chalmers Berglind took over the offense from the Greyhounds’ own eight-yard line. If the name sounds familiar, Chalmers’ older brother Dabo was the starting quarterback last season.
The youngest Berglind — the middle brother Hayden plays tight end — led a 92-yard drive and finished it himself with a four-yard keeper for six. Berglind completed six passes on the drive for 73 yards in what was his fourth appearance of the season.
Berglind scored on the ground and through the air during mop-up duty against Harrison Central and had a three-yard rushing touchdown against St. Martin.
Sharroid Whitehead finished the season at quarterback and had a 7-1 record as starter. Whitehead is a junior with one more year to run the offense while Berglind continues to progress behind him. Throw in a young defense that allowed just 9.6 points per game in district and the Greyhounds have plenty reason to be excited for the future ahead.
Controversy mires Picayune finale
Picayune had multiple apparent touchdowns never make it to the board in a four-point loss to Hattiesburg. The Maroon Tide were locked in a fast-paced back-and-forth affair that featured an electric battle between Darrell Smith and 6A Mr. Football Deuce Vance and it ended with four opportunities for Picayune to take the lead in the final minute.
Smith caught what appeared to be the go-ahead score, but was ruled out of bounds by officials. BJ Ducre also caught a pass, but was ruled out at the back of the end zone. Picayune’s other two attempts came up empty.
Earlier in the game, a tipped-ball hail mary that ended up in the hands of A’Darrius Fortenberry at the end of the first half appeared to give the Tide a halftime lead, but a penalty brought it back.
Regardless of what calls were made, Picayune had four different leads that it saw disappear throughout the evening. It was former Harrison Central standout and current Southern Miss commit Tyree Barnett who caught the go-ahead touchdown pass for Hattiesburg.
Stogner on top of elite company
Though the season did end early for the Tide, Stogner was still able to make history before wrapping up his fifth season at the head of the Picayune program.
Playoff wins over Pearl River Central and George County gave Stogner the most wins by a Coast coach in his first five years at a school with 58. And it put him on top of legendary company.
The previous record was held by Moss Point great and South Mississippi legend Jerry Alexander, who won 56 games through his first five seasons leading the Tigers. Alexander would go on to win 167 games and four state championships with the Tigers.
Current Poplarville coach Jay Beech has the third-most, winning 55 games in his first five years and he’s followed by Al Jones and his 49 wins at George County.
